Rendering at Three Legged Cross
Cracked, hollow and tired render across Three Legged Cross and Verwood, diagnosed properly before anything new goes over the top of it.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Not all cracks in render mean the same thing. A fine net of hairlines across a panel is the coat shrinking. A single line running diagonally out of a window corner is the building moving. One is a surface job and one is not, and telling them apart is the first thing worth doing.
Most of the housing at Three Legged Cross is post-war or newer, and a fair share of it went up since the early 1980s. So the render we look at is generally a modern coat on cavity blockwork rather than something historic, and when it cracks there is usually a specific, findable reason.
People ring about a crack that has opened over a winter, a hollow patch under a sill, or dash starting to shed. We come out, read the cracks, tap the elevation and put the answer in a free written itemised quote before anybody talks about colour.
The work
Reading a crack before covering it up
The survey. A light hammer over every elevation and 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 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 recommend most on 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.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out to somebody you have never met. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: access and scaffold, protection, preparation of the existing wall, the system and number of coats, beads and stop ends, and making good on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Renewing render that is already on a wall is maintenance. Rendering one that never was, or changing the finish, is a planning question and the Planning Portal sets out where the line falls. There is no conservation area here and one listed entry, so on an ordinary house the finish is your decision. Renewing a whole elevation brings Part L and building control in, because the wall counts as a thermal element.
Cost
What decides the price of a rendering job
No rate per square metre, because the square metres are the easy part; what is already on the wall decides the price.
Getting to it. A detached house on an open plot, a terrace with the wall close to a footpath and a bungalow behind a carport are three different platforms. A bungalow gable comes off a tower, a three storey elevation wants a scaffold, and the platform has to stand for the whole system rather than a day. The work at height rules are why it is a priced line rather than something folded into a rate.
What is already on the wall. Rendering over sound brick is one job. Hacking off blown sand and cement, or a pebbledash that has parted from the background, is another, and it is the part nobody can see from the road. We tap the whole elevation before quoting, because the hollow areas set the hours.
The system, and what the wall behind it needs. Silicone thin coat over insulation, monocouche through-coloured, or traditional sand and cement all price differently and behave differently. On a solid wall that has to breathe, a plastic-rich modern system traps moisture and moves the problem inside, so the right system is a wall decision rather than a colour decision.
Comparing quotes? Ask which system is being quoted and how many coats, whether the old render is being hacked off or overlaid, whether beads, bellcast and stop ends are included, whether the scaffold is in the price, and what happens to the existing sills and pipework. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.
If it has started to come away
Render that has blown or cracked open
Ring rather than use the form. A section that sounds hollow when you tap it, or a crack you can get a coin into, is letting water behind the render and the frost does the rest. We make the loose area safe, sheet it if the weather is against us, and price the elevation once we can see how far the blown area actually goes. A crack you can post a coin into is worth reporting before winter, because water in it freezes and the coat comes off around it. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
What the crack is telling you about the wall
Render cracks for three broad reasons 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 here 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.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Three Legged Cross, Verwood, West Moors, Ashley Heath and the BH21 addresses around them, under Dorset Council. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
Three Legged Cross questions we get asked
Is a crack in render serious?
It depends on its shape. A fine net of hairlines over a whole panel is the coat shrinking and is a surface problem. One long crack that runs level, steps along the joints or comes off an extension junction is movement in the wall, and covering that one up without understanding it is how people end up rendering twice.
Can you just fill the crack?
Filling alone rarely lasts, because whatever caused it is still there. On a shrinkage or corner crack the proper repair is to cut it out, then run a mesh reinforced basecoat across the area so the stress is spread rather than concentrated on one line, and finish over the whole panel so nothing shows.
Why does the crack always start at the window?
Because that is where the wall has the least material to carry the stress, so movement and temperature change concentrate at the corner. It is so predictable that a proper build up puts extra mesh diagonally across every opening as a matter of course, before the topcoat goes anywhere near it.
Our render is fairly new. Should it be cracking already?
Fine crazing in the first couple of years usually means the coat dried too quickly or the mix was too strong, which is a workmanship issue rather than a fault in the wall. It still wants sorting, because open cracks let water into the basecoat and the frost will work on it from there.
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Get the cracks read before they are covered
Thomas looks at every crack and taps the whole elevation, tells you which are surface and which are not, and puts the repair in a free written itemised quote.