Rendering at Three Legged Cross

The survey comes first. A light hammer goes over every Three Legged Cross elevation, with a proper look at every crack: where it starts, where it stops, whether it is wider at one end, whether it follows a joint. Hollow render has delaminated from the background and cannot be held on by a coating. We mark, photograph and measure it all.

Shrinkage crazing. A fine map of hairline cracks across a panel, usually all over rather than in one place. It comes from a mix that was too strong or a coat that dried too fast in sun or drying wind. It is not structural, but it lets water in, so the answer is a mesh reinforced basecoat over the top and a new topcoat, not a coat of paint.

Cracks at openings. A single line at forty five degrees out of a window or door corner is stress concentrating where the wall is weakest. On a sound building it is usually the render alone and it is cured by mesh across the opening on the rebuild. Where it goes through the block behind as well, that wants understanding before it is covered.

Straight cracks that follow something. A line that runs dead level, or steps along mortar joints, is usually telling you about what is behind: a lintel, a change of material, a junction between an extension and the original house. Rigid renders need movement beads at those places, and a long unbroken run without one will crack in the same spot again.

Hacking off and rebuilding. Where a coat on a Three Legged Cross house has gone we hack off to the blockwork, clean down the background, cut out loose mortar and any spalled face, and let it dry. Then beads: angle beads on corners, stop beads at reveals and against frames, a bellcast at the base. A primer or a slurry key on dense block, a mesh reinforced polymer basecoat, a topcoat last.

The systems. Silicone thin coat, through-coloured and scraped to a fine texture, is what we would recommend on Three Legged Cross cavity blockwork, because it moves a little rather than cracking. Monocouche is one thick through-coloured coat for new work and extensions. Two coat sand and cement, scratched and floated, still belongs on plinths, garages and boundary walls and takes paint, dry dash or a Tyrolean finish.

Dash, staining and insulation. Pebbledash with a sound backing can be stabilised, patched and re-dashed to match. Green and black streaking is algae and wants a wash. Where EWI board goes on, the render becomes the weather skin over a render carrier or a mesh basecoat, and the thermal benefit rests on the sill, eaves and base detailing.

You will not get a rate per square metre from us. Anyone can measure a wall. Height and access. A gable on a bungalow, or a band of render under the windows, is done off a tower.

A two storey gable takes a scaffold, and it stays up through every coat and the drying days in between. On a Three Legged Cross terraced house the platform may need to cross next door's path. The work at height rules put it on the quote as its own item.

The coat that is there now. New render on sound Three Legged Cross blockwork is straightforward. Knocking off old sand and cement that has blown, or pebbledash that has let go, is slower, and you cannot judge it from the pavement. Tapping finds the hollow areas, and they drive the hours.

Which render. A two coat sand and cement finish, a through coloured monocouche and a thin silicone finish on a base coat each cost different amounts. On the blockwork behind most render here, any of them is fine. On a solid brick cottage, a breathable lime render is the safer choice.

The trims. Beading at corners, a bellcast drip above the damp course, stop beads at windows, and taking off pipes and dishes and putting them back all add time.

Ask anyone else quoting: which render, how many coats, is the old coat coming off, and is the scaffold in the figure?

Render cracks from shrinkage, from stress at openings or from movement, and the pattern gives it away. Shrinkage shows as fine crazing spread over a whole panel, with no single dominant line, and it happens in the first year or two of a coat's life.

Stress at openings shows as short diagonals from the corners of windows and doors, because that is where the wall has least material to carry the load. Movement shows as one long crack that follows something structural: level along a lintel, stepped along the joints, or vertical at the junction where an extension meets the original wall.

The reason it matters is that only the first two are cured by rendering. A mesh reinforced basecoat spreads the stress and will hold a crazed panel or a corner diagonal quietly for years. A movement crack covered with mesh reappears, because the thing that is moving is still moving, and you have paid for a finish that has a line through it.

So when you get a quote, ask what the firm thinks each crack is and why. On the newer housing in Three Legged Cross the answer is nearly always benign, and a mesh reinforced overlay or a rebuild solves it. Where it is not, the right advice is to find out what is moving first, which may be nothing more than a lintel or a poorly tied extension, and to get that settled before the elevation is finished. That is a shorter conversation than it sounds and it saves doing the wall twice.

Rendering jobs in Ashley Heath, West Moors, Verwood and Three Legged Cross itself, plus the surrounding BH21 roads, are about nine miles' drive from our base in Boscombe, and all of them fall under Dorset Council.

Your contract is with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. The owner is Thomas Hannen, who taps the wall with you and works out the price himself. A verified customer has given us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. You are not charged for the visit, or for the written quote that itemises each coat and line. Before you book a visit in Three Legged Cross, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Three Legged Cross 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.