Rendering in Sopley, old core and new estate

Working out what the wall is. Before anything in Sopley is quoted we tap the elevation and look at what the render is sitting on. A solid wall behaves nothing like a modern cavity wall, and that is the one mistake here that cannot be corrected afterwards.

Lime render on solid walls. A period wall carries moisture out through its face. Lime render lets it, so the wall dries and the coat stays put. It goes on in a scratch coat and a floating coat with a lime finish over it, worked and protected while it cures, and it is slower than anything modern for a reason.

Why a modern system is wrong on an old wall. Put a plastic rich topcoat on a solid wall and the moisture is trapped. It shows as damp on the inside face and, outside, a coat that lifts and blows off in the first hard frost. Not a question of quality, simply the wrong material for the background.

Silicone thin coat and monocouche on the newer houses. On a newer cavity-walled house in Sopley a modern system is exactly right. A mesh reinforced basecoat, a primer and a silicone topcoat scraped or floated, or a through-coloured monocouche laid in one build. Neither needs painting afterwards.

Traditional sand and cement, dash and Tyrolean. Still the right build for matching into an existing scratch and float elevation, for outbuildings and for garden walls. Dashed and Tyrolean finishes can be cut out and repaired, with the usual caveat that new aggregate reads lighter than weathered aggregate for a while.

Hacking off and preparing the background. Blown render on a Sopley wall comes off to a firm edge, by hand on an old wall where a breaker would take the face off soft brick or stonework. The background is made good, given a key and stabilised with a primer where it is friable.

Beads, bellcast and stop ends. Angle beads at the corners, stop beads at the reveals and a bellcast at the base so water drips clear. On a lime job the arrises are often formed by hand instead, because a hard metal bead in a soft coat is a crack waiting to happen.

Render over external wall insulation. On the newer Sopley cavity houses, insulation board or a render carrier fixed to the outside face and rendered over is worth pricing while the scaffold is up, for the thermal gain. On a solid wall EWI has to be a breathable build or it makes the drying problem worse.

Cracking, delamination, algae and staining. Cracks are cut out, meshed and made good before frost gets behind them. Green staining on a shaded elevation is a surface matter, and a wash with a treatment and a breathable coating deals with it more cheaply than a new system.

What is on the wall now. Laying new render over sound brick or block is the straightforward case. If the old coat rings hollow when tapped, it has lost its grip and has to be hacked back to the background first, and on a pebbledashed front that can be most of the elevation. You cannot tell from the pavement, so Thomas taps the whole wall before he prices it.

Which system suits the wall. A silicone thin coat, a monocouche that carries its own colour, a traditional sand and cement scratch and top coat, or lime: each takes a different number of coats and days. A lime-built cottage wall needs to dry outwards, and sealing it under a plastic-rich finish pushes the damp indoors, so the wall chooses the system before you choose a colour.

The south west side. The walls in Sopley that face south west take the driven rain. They are where render cracks and blows first, and where the detailing at sills, bellcast and stop ends matters most.

Access. A rendered Sopley front in the middle of a terrace needs scaffolding that spans the houses either side for as long as the job runs. A bungalow gable is tower work. The work at height rules make access a separate line.

Ground movement. On shrink-swell clay, a crack running through the render and the wall behind may be the ground moving, so we look at the wall before re-rendering over it.

Ask other firms which system and how many coats, whether the old render is being hacked off, and whether the beads and the scaffold are included.

We cover Sopley, Ripley and the lanes towards Bransgore, all BH23, 3.7 miles up the road from our Boscombe base. New Forest District Council is the council. You would be hiring Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Sopley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Thomas Hannen, who owns it, comes out, taps the render and prices the elevation himself. A verified customer on Checkatrade gave a 10 out of 10. Our visit and the written quote, itemised line by line, are free.

Most repairs in Sopley 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.