Rendering in Stone and Pamphill
Lime render on the older solid walls and thin coat systems on the newer cavity ones, decided by tapping the wall rather than by the street it stands on.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Rendering in Stone and Pamphill is specified wall by wall, not street by street. On the same lane there are solid brick cottages that must breathe and 1980s cavity houses that do not. Cracked or hollow render on the old walls comes off and goes back in lime; the newer ones can be patched or re-rendered in a silicone thin coat, and sound dash can be patched and re-dashed. Damp inside is a plastering repair.
That is why, in Stone, we tap before we talk about colour. Knocking round an elevation with a light hammer tells you in ten minutes whether the render is still stuck, whether the wall behind it is solid or cavity, and whether the backing is lime or cement. Everything else follows from those answers.
The faults themselves in Stone are ordinary. Dash coming off in plates. A bulge under a sill. A crack that has opened up over a winter. A wall that greens over every year no matter how often it is washed. The site visit and the written itemised quote are both free, so there is no cost in finding out which one you have.
The work
Two kinds of wall, two kinds of render
Solid walled cottages and older brickwork. A house in Stone built before 1919 has a solid wall with no cavity, built to get wet and dry out again through its own face. Those take a lime render: a haired first coat worked well into the background, a floated second, and a mineral finish or limewash over it.
It is slower, it wants protecting from sun and frost while it cures, and it is the only thing that will not push the damp inwards.
Post-war and modern cavity walls. On blockwork with a cavity behind it a modern system is the sensible answer. Silicone thin coat is what we would put forward: an alkali resistant mesh worked into a polymer basecoat, then a flexible through-coloured topcoat scraped to a fine texture. Monocouche does the same job in one thick coat and suits new blockwork and extensions.
Telling them apart. A cavity wall usually shows a header pattern that is too regular, wall ties on a survey, and a coat that sounds different under the hammer. A solid wall shows headers every few courses and a lime backing that crumbles rather than shatters. Getting this wrong is the single most expensive mistake in rendering, so we would rather open a small area up than guess.
Hacking off and preparation. Where a coat on a house in Stone has failed we hack off to the background, clean down, cut out loose or spalled material, and let it dry. A primer or slurry key on dense block. Then the beads: angle beads on the corners, stop beads at reveals, and a bellcast at the base so water is thrown clear of the wall rather than running back under the coat.
Sand and cement, dash and Tyrolean. Traditional two coat work, scratched and floated, still earns its place on plinths, garages, chimneys and boundary walls, and it takes paint, dry dash or a Tyrolean finish. Where existing pebbledash has a sound backing we stabilise and patch it and re-dash to match rather than strip a whole elevation.
Cracking, staining and algae. Fine crazing across a panel is shrinkage in the coat. A single crack running out of a corner is movement in the building. Green and black streaking is algae and wants washing, not rendering. We say which is which before anybody quotes.
Render over external wall insulation. On the newer houses in Stone EWI board with a render carrier or a mesh basecoat is worth considering. On a solid walled cottage it is a specialist decision, because the thermal gain has to be weighed against what it does to the way the wall dries.
How it runs
Re-rendering a wall, from hacking off to the top coat
Thomas goes over each wall with the handle of a hammer, listening for the dull note of render that has come away, and looks at what it was put on. In Stone that could be a rendered gable or panel on an eighties house, or an older cottage with lime render over soft brick, which should get lime again.
His quote for a house in Stone shows the scaffold, the sheeting and protection, the hacking off and preparation, which render system and how many coats, the beads, stop ends and bellcast, and making good round sills and pipes, each as a separate figure. Thomas is your one contact throughout. Each coat is given time to firm up before the next goes on, and hacked off render is bagged and removed. A cracked wall or a crumbling background found under the old coat is photographed and priced, and the job waits for your answer.
Renewing render that is already on a wall is maintenance. Rendering a wall that never was, or changing the finish, is a planning question, and the Planning Portal sets out where the line falls. The housing in Stone is outside any conservation area, though Pamphill and Cowgrove sit inside the Pamphill Conservation Area, and on a listed building consent comes before any work. A full elevation renewal brings Part L and building control in.
Cost
Old render, new systems and scaffold on a block
How much of the old coat comes off. A coat that is still bonded can be repaired or overcoated. One that sounds drummy has let go of the wall and has to be hacked back to brick or block first. On an eighties gable that might be a patch; on an old cottage it can be the whole face. Thomas taps every elevation before he prices.
The system. A silicone thin coat, a coloured monocouche, sand and cement in two coats, or lime: each has its own number of coats, drying time and cost. An old solid wall has to lose moisture through its face, so it gets lime or a breathable finish rather than a plastic-rich one.
Access. A bungalow gable in Stone comes off a tower. A two storey house needs a scaffold, and it stays up along the elevation for the whole system. Work at height rules make that a line of its own.
Ground and cracks. Stone is on clay that shrinks and swells, and a crack that runs through render and wall alike may be the ground moving. We check that before re-rendering, or the crack comes back.
Ask other firms which system and how many coats, whether the old render is being hacked off or overlaid, and whether beads, bellcast and scaffold are included.
If it has started to come away
Render cracked open or coming off in sections
A section that sounds hollow when tapped, or a crack you can get a coin into, is letting water behind the render, and the frost does the rest. Lime render over soft backing takes water quickly, so it matters sooner.
If a piece has fallen from a wall in Stone, keep people away, particularly from a communal entrance. Ring; skip the form. We remove anything loose on the first visit and sheet it if rain is due; the elevation is priced once we can see how far it goes. Render work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If it cannot wait, call, and any missed call is returned as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
The wrong system on an old wall is worse than no system
A solid brick wall works by getting wet and drying out again. Rain soaks into the outer face, the wall holds it for a while, and then it evaporates back out through the same surface once the weather turns. Nothing about that is a fault. It is how the building was designed, and a lime render is porous on purpose so it can take part in it.
Put a cement rich or plastic rich modern render on that wall and you break the cycle. Water still gets in, through a crack, round a sill, up from the ground, but now it cannot get back out through the face, so it moves to the next available route. That is the inside of the wall. The result is a damp shadow along a skirting, salts coming through the paint, and in a bad winter the frost lifting the new render off in sheets because it has been holding water behind it all year.
The rule in Stone is easy to say and worth insisting on. Modern systems on modern cavity walls, lime on solid walls. If somebody quotes you a silicone or a monocouche finish for a pre-1919 cottage without once asking what the wall is made of, that is the answer to whether they have looked at it. Ask them what the wall is, how they know, and what the render does when it gets wet.
Who you are dealing with
Who you are hiring for render work
We cover Stone, Pamphill, Cowgrove, Wimborne and the BH21 addresses around them. Stone is close to nine miles from our Boscombe base and sits in the Dorset Council area. The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Stone, 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 us 10 out of 10. Our visit is free, and so is the written quote itemised line by line.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Stone?
Most repairs in Stone 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.
| Question | In Stone |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Stone. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Stone itself, but Pamphill and Cowgrove are inside the Pamphill Conservation Area. A like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Stone. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Stone. |
Questions
Questions about rendering in Stone
How can we tell what our wall is built of?
By the brick pattern, by the sound under a hammer, and where there is any doubt by opening a small area up. A solid wall shows headers running through every few courses and a soft lime backing. A cavity wall is usually stretchers all the way with a harder, more regular coat over it.
Why can we not just use the same render the neighbours had?
Because the wall behind it may not be the same wall. On these lanes a pre-1919 cottage and an eighties house can be thirty feet apart. The neighbour's silicone system may be exactly right for their blockwork and exactly wrong for your solid brick, and you would not find out for a couple of winters.
Is lime render much more expensive?
It is more labour and more waiting, not dearer materials. There are more coats, each one wants time before the next, and it has to be protected from sun, wind and frost while it cures. What it is not is optional on a wall that has to dry through its own face.
Will a patch blend in with the render around it?
Usually, yes: we match the texture and the aggregate first and the colour second, because texture is what the eye reads at a distance. A sample panel goes on the wall before the main work so you can see it in daylight next to the old finish instead of judging it off a card.
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Rendering near Stone
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Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Listed building consent for repointing and re-renderingEverything we do in Corfe Mullen Rendering, all areas Every area we cover
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Get the wall identified before the render is chosen
Thomas taps the elevation, works out what the wall is made of and what belongs on it, and puts the whole thing in a free written itemised quote.