Rendering in Sixpenny Handley

Silicone thin coat on a Sixpenny Handley wall starts with primer, a polymer basecoat with glass fibre mesh bedded into it, then a through-coloured silicone topcoat scraped to an even texture. It moves slightly with the background, sheds driven rain and keeps its colour, which is what an exposed elevation wants. Beads and stop ends at every opening and a bellcast at the base so water leaves the wall.

Monocouche. A single through-coloured coat laid on thick and scraped back the next day. It is quick and hard wearing, and it is the fussiest system about weather. Frost inside the first few days ruins it, so we will not start one in a cold week however keen anybody is.

Sand and cement, pebbledash and Tyrolean. Scratch coat, float coat, then a smooth finish, a dry dash thrown on while the coat is green, or a Tyrolean flicked on. Matching an existing Sixpenny Handley dash is a matter of aggregate size and colour, so we mix and hang a sample panel before the main wall.

Lime render. The older solid walls in Sixpenny Handley have no cavity and get rid of rain by drying back out through their own face, so they want lime in two or three coats, hair gauged in the base. Lime is also the slowest to cure and the least tolerant of frost, which puts it firmly in the warmer half of the year.

Tapping and hacking off. Blown render has parted from its background. We tap the Sixpenny Handley elevation and mark every hollow area, because how far they run decides between cutting out panels and taking the wall back to the background and starting again.

Cracks, delamination, algae and staining. Fine crazing is shrinkage and cosmetic. An open crack is movement or a failed bead and needs cutting out and reinforcing. Green and black staining on a shaded wall is organic growth and comes off with a soft wash rather than a pressure lance.

Render over external wall insulation. Insulation board fixed to the wall as a render carrier, then mesh, basecoat and topcoat over it. Approved Document L sets what a renovated wall is expected to reach, and on an exposed house up here the difference in a cold snap is worth having. Every reveal gets deeper, so cills and pipework are planned rather than found.

Render is never priced per square metre by us. What is on the wall now, and what the wall behind needs, sets the figure.

The platform. A farmhouse with a yard for a tower, a house on the Sixpenny Handley village street, and a gable facing open fields are three different set ups. A tall wall needs a scaffold that stays up while every coat goes on and cures. The work at height rules set what it must be.

What has to come off. Where the old coat has blown, or the pebbledash has let go of the wall, it all has to be hacked off first, which is slow, dusty and fills skips.

Choosing the system. Silicone thin coat, monocouche coloured right through, a sand and cement scratch and top coat, or lime: each has its own price and its own behaviour. On an old solid wall of brick or flint, render that cannot breathe holds water in the wall, so lime is often right here, though it is slower.

The weather. Up here, wind and rain can hold up each coat, and frost stops the work entirely.

Before you sign anything, find out which system and how many coats are quoted, whether the old render is coming off or being covered, whether beads, bellcast and stop ends are in, and whether the scaffold is counted.

Everything about render depends on it curing rather than drying. The chemistry needs time and moisture, and it is unforgiving at both ends of the thermometer. Frost inside the first days of a fresh coat expands the water in it and destroys the bond, and the damage does not show until spring.

Strong sun on a south wall does the opposite, pulling the moisture out too fast so the coat crazes and never reaches its strength. Driving rain on a green surface washes the face off it. On high open ground the cold arrives earlier, the frosts run later into spring and the wind is on the wall more days of the year, so the reliable window is genuinely narrower here than it is fifteen miles south.

That does not mean nothing happens in winter, and it does not mean paying for a delay. Preparation, hacking off, scaffold and repairs to beads and cracks all carry on in the cold. What we will not do is put a topcoat on in a week with frost forecast, or start a monocouche when the nights are near freezing, because the wall would be back on our list in two years. When we quote in the autumn we will tell you which parts we can do now and which are better held to March, and we would rather lose the booking than take it and hope.

Our Boscombe base is 17.1 miles from Sixpenny Handley, and from there we render walls in the village and in Pentridge, Woodyates and Cranborne. Dorset Council handles planning and building control for all of them.

You would be dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, which is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen's name is on it, and he is the one who taps your wall and writes the price himself. A verified customer scored us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the itemised written quote are free of charge. Before you book a visit in Sixpenny Handley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Sixpenny Handley need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.