Rendering in Swanage
Lime render and roughcast on the old stone walls, thin coat systems on the newer blockwork, and cement coats taken off the buildings that should never have had them.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
Rendering in Swanage is lime and roughcast on the old stone walls, thin coat systems on the newer blockwork, and cement coats taken off buildings that should never have had them. Getting on for three in ten homes predate 1919, with solid Purbeck stone or brick walls, so cracked or hollow cement there comes off and goes back in lime. Near the sea, beads are stainless. For inside walls, see plastering in Swanage.
Swanage has both kinds of building on one street. A rubble stone cottage below the church and a rendered blockwork house up the hill need opposite treatments, and the mistake that fills skips here is the modern system on the old wall.
In Swanage we tap before we talk about finishes. What the hammer tells us is whether the coat is still stuck, whether the backing is lime or cement, and whether the wall behind is solid or cavity. The site visit and the written itemised quote are free, so finding out costs you nothing.
The work
Lime on the old stone, modern systems on the new blockwork
Lime render on solid walls. On a pre-1919 stone or brick wall the render is part of how the building manages water, not a raincoat over it.
On a Swanage rubble wall it goes on in three coats: a haired first coat pressed hard into the joints of the rubble so it keys, a straightening coat, and a fine finish coat, each given real time before the next. Grades of natural hydraulic lime are chosen to be weaker than the stone, because a render must always be the sacrificial layer. It is then finished with limewash or a mineral paint that lets vapour through.
Curing is half the job. Lime does not set the way cement does. It needs to be kept damp and protected from sun, drying wind and frost while it carbonates, which means hessian and sheeting on the scaffold and a programme that works round the weather. A lime job hurried in a hot week crazes and dusts, and there is no putting that right afterwards.
Roughcast and harling. Plenty of the older exposed walls in Swanage carry a thrown finish rather than a floated one, with the aggregate mixed into the coat and cast on. It is tougher against driven rain than a smooth face and it stays breathable, and where a wall already has it we would rather repair and re-throw it than smooth the building over.
Silicone thin coat and monocouche. On post-war and modern cavity blockwork in Swanage the modern systems are the right answer. Mesh reinforced polymer basecoat, then a flexible through-coloured topcoat scraped to a fine texture, or a single thick monocouche coat ruled and scraped. Beads on those go on in stainless steel here, because galvanised ones close to the sea corrode and bleed a rust line through the finish.
Cement off an old wall. The job old Swanage needs most is taking a cement render off stone that should never have carried it. We hack off by hand where the stone is soft, rake and make good the joints, and let the wall dry before any lime goes back on. That drying time cannot be skipped.
Cracking, spalling and staining. A cement coat on stone usually announces itself twice: a crack, then a hollow patch, then spalled stone behind it when it finally comes off. Fine crazing on a modern render is shrinkage. Green and black growth is algae and wants washing, not rendering.
Flats and whole elevations. Close to four homes in ten here are flats, so a render job is often a full elevation instructed by a managing agent rather than one house.
How it runs
Re-rendering a seaward wall, from survey to finish
Tell us which wall and what it is doing: render cracked, sounding hollow, or stained below the sills. Thomas comes out, taps the whole elevation to map the blown areas, checks whether the wall behind is stone, brick or block, and prices it himself. Thomas is your one contact while the scaffold goes up, the wall is hacked off and every coat goes on.
The Swanage quote is itemised: access and scaffold, protecting windows and paths, hacking off and preparation, the render system and number of coats, beads, bellcast and stop ends, and making good around sills and pipes. Seafront blocks and three storey terraces need a full scaffold, often over a pavement, and a Herston bungalow comes off a tower. Render is not put on in rain, frost or strong sun, so the programme follows the forecast. Windows are masked and the paths swept each day. If the wall behind the old render has decayed, a photograph and a price come to you before the next coat does.
Renewing existing render is maintenance. Inside the Swanage or Herston conservation areas, rendering a wall that was never rendered is not permitted development and needs an application. On a listed building, consent covers the external render as well as the fabric inside. A full elevation also brings Part L and building control in.
Cost
What decides the price of render near the bay
The square metres are the easy part. What is already on the wall, and what the wall needs, decide the price.
The platform. A Swanage stone cottage on a narrow lane, a seafront block and a post-war house up the hill are three different scaffolds, and each has to stand for the whole system, not a day. Work at height rules make it a line of its own.
Taking off what has failed. Hacking off blown sand and cement, or pebbledash parting from the wall, is the part nobody sees from the road, and it sets the hours. We tap the whole elevation before quoting.
The right system for the wall. Purbeck stone and old brick need to breathe, so they take lime render. A cement or plastic-rich coat traps water in a solid wall and pushes damp inside. Silicone thin coat, monocouche and sand and cement suit blockwork and modern brick, and each is priced differently.
Salt and weather. On a seaward elevation, beads and stop ends are stainless or PVC so they cannot rust through the finish, and the wind off the bay governs when coats can go on.
Ask other quotes which system, how many coats, and whether old render is being removed or overlaid.
If it has started to come away
Render cracked open or coming off in sheets
A section that sounds hollow when tapped, or a crack you can slide a coin into, lets rain in behind the render, and frost then pushes it off. On a solid wall that water goes straight into soft stone and lime. Ring instead of using the form.
The first visit to a Swanage house takes down anything loose over a path or door and sheets the worst if rain is coming, and we price the elevation once we see how far the blown area runs. Booked rendering is Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If a piece could fall, phone us; if we miss it, we phone back at the first chance we get.
Worth knowing
Why Purbeck stone will not tolerate a modern render
A solid rubble stone wall has no cavity and no damp proof course. It was built to get wet in a storm and give the water back to the air afterwards, through its own face, over the following days. A lime render is porous and weak on purpose so it can take part in that. It is also softer than the stone, which means that when something has to fail, it is the render that goes and not the building.
A cement rich or plastic rich render breaks both of those rules. It is stronger than the stone, so movement cracks the stone rather than the coat. And it is close to impermeable, so the water that gets in behind it, through a hairline crack, round a sill, or up from the ground, cannot get back out through the face. It goes inwards instead, and that is the damp shadow along a skirting board that no amount of internal work will cure. In a hard winter the same trapped water freezes and takes the render off in sheets, bringing the surface of the stone with it.
Salt makes it worse, not different. The Swanage weather walls are wetted repeatedly and carry salt in the surface, which holds them damp between showers and crystallises behind an impermeable coat. So if you are getting an old wall priced here, ask one question and listen to the answer: what happens to the water that gets behind this render. A quote with no answer to that is a quote for the wrong building.
Who you are dealing with
Who renders your wall, and how to check them
We are at 80a Wolverton Road, Boscombe, 10 miles from Swanage, and render walls across Swanage, Herston, Durlston, Langton Matravers, Studland and the addresses around them, under Dorset Council. Our company, Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, is registered in England and Wales as number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Swanage, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Thomas Hannen owns it, and he is the one who taps your wall and prices the job. Checkatrade carries a verified customer's 10 out of 10. We make no charge for coming out, or for the written quote with each item listed.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Swanage?
Most repairs in Swanage 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 Swanage |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Swanage. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Swanage Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Swanage. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Dorset National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about rendering in Swanage
Why can our stone cottage not have a modern render?
Because it has no cavity and no damp proof course. A solid wall gets wet and dries through its own face, and a plastic-rich or cement-rich coat seals that route off. The water still gets in behind, then goes inwards instead, which is where the damp along a skirting comes from. Lime keeps the wall working the way it was built to.
How long does lime render take compared with a modern system?
Considerably longer, and most of the extra is waiting instead of working. Three coats with real time between each, then a curing period with the wall kept damp and protected from sun and frost. On an exposed elevation the job is planned around the season rather than squeezed into a week.
Ours was done in cement years ago. Can that come off?
It comes off, carefully, and the wall is allowed to dry before anything replaces it. Coming off is the easy part. What we look for underneath is spalled stone and washed out joints, because a coat that has been holding water usually leaves damage that needs making good first.
Are the beads different because we are near the sea?
On modern systems, yes, they should be stainless. A mile and a half from open water there is enough salt in the air to corrode a galvanised bead inside a render, and when it goes it cracks the corner and bleeds a rust stain down the finish. Lime work uses far fewer beads, which is one less thing to fail.
Our block of flats needs rendering. Who arranges it?
The freeholder or the managing agent. External walls are retained under a normal lease and maintained through the service charge, so a leaseholder cannot commission the work. Report it in writing and ask that we are invited to survey the elevation and quote it.
Nearby, and next door
Rendering near Swanage
Nearby places we also cover for rendering, with straight-line distances from Swanage, and the other trades we offer in Swanage itself.
Rendering nearby
Our other trades in Swanage
Rendering guides
Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Listed building consent for repointing and re-renderingEverything we do in Swanage Rendering, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get the wall identified before the render is chosen
Thomas taps the elevation, works out whether you have solid stone or cavity blockwork, and puts the right system, the beads and the access in a free written itemised quote.