Rendering in Walhampton and Portmore
Inside the National Park boundary, where a change of external finish is the Authority's decision rather than the district council's.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Everything here sits inside the New Forest National Park, so the planning authority for a change of external finish is the Park, not the district council. That one fact decides how long a render job takes to get started, and people regularly apply to the wrong office and lose a month.
The work itself is ordinary enough. A blown patch that sounds hollow under a knuckle, a crack tracking down from a window head, dash flaking off a weather elevation, or a wall that greens over every winter under the trees and never really dries.
We come out, tap the whole elevation rather than the bit you have noticed, and tell you whether it is a patch, an overlay or a wall that has to come back to the background. Then it goes in writing, line by line, with the access and the beadwork priced separately so you can compare it with anyone else's. The site visit and the written itemised quote are both free.
The work
Systems we fit, and the walls they belong on
Silicone thin coat. Primer, a polymer basecoat with glass fibre mesh bedded into it, then a through-coloured silicone topcoat floated to a scraped texture. Slightly flexible, self cleaning in rain, and the usual answer on newer blockwork and on the flats and converted buildings around here. Beads and stop ends at every opening and a bellcast at the base.
Monocouche. A single through-coloured coat laid on thick and scraped back the next day. Fast on a plain elevation, hard wearing, and fussy about background and weather. It is not the system for a wall that is a patchwork of previous repairs.
Sand and cement, pebbledash and Tyrolean. Scratch coat, float coat, then a smooth finish, a dry dash thrown while the coat is green, or a Tyrolean flicked on. Matching an existing dash is aggregate size and colour, so we mix and hang a sample panel before the main wall.
Lime on the older fabric. A pre-1919 solid wall has no cavity and dries out through its own face. It wants a soft breathable coat, which means lime in two or three coats, hair gauged in the base. On the older cottages a cement coat is the single most common cause of damp appearing inside a house that was dry for two hundred years.
Hacking off blown render. Blown means parted from its background. We tap the elevation and mark the hollow areas, because the extent of them decides whether panels get cut out or the wall is stripped. It is the part nobody can price from a photograph.
Cracks, delamination, algae and staining. Crazing is shrinkage and cosmetic. An open crack is movement or a failed bead and needs cutting out and reinforcing. Green and black staining on a shaded elevation is algae, and it comes off with a soft wash rather than a lance.
Render over external wall insulation. Insulation board fixed as a render carrier, then mesh, basecoat and topcoat over the top. It changes the thermal performance of the wall and it changes the look of the building, so in the Park it is a design question as well as a technical one. Approved Document L sets what a renovated wall is expected to reach.
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.
Repairing or renewing a finish like for like is maintenance and needs nothing. A change of material or colour on an elevation you can see from a road is a change of appearance, and here that application goes to the National Park Authority. Forest South East is the conservation area covering this ground and the Park publishes what is designated and what it means. We check the address before quoting.
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 converted coach house down a private drive, a two storey house on the Lymington road and a flat in a shared building each need a different platform and a different set of permissions before work starts. 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. Anything with bare background showing wants covering before the next wet week, because a soaked wall adds drying time onto the front of the repair rather than the end of it. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
The National Park is the planning authority here, not the district
This is the thing that trips people up, and it costs weeks rather than pounds. For most of the coast the district council handles planning. Inside the National Park boundary the Authority takes that role itself, and the boundary runs close to the built-up edge of Lymington, so two houses a few hundred metres apart can answer to different offices. If you send a form to the wrong one it does not get forwarded quietly; it comes back, and the render job waits.
The 93 listed entries near here are concentrated on the Walhampton estate and the school rather than spread through the housing, so most homes are not listed. What most people are dealing with is the conservation area, and there the test is appearance. Renewing an existing render in the same finish and colour is repair. Rendering a brick or stone elevation that has never been rendered, or going from a muted colour to a bright one on a road frontage, is a change worth asking about first. Ring us with the postcode and we will tell you which side of the line you are on before you pay anybody for drawings.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Walhampton, Portmore, Pilley, Boldre and the lanes east of Lymington, broadly SO41, with the New Forest National Park Authority for planning. 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
Walhampton and Portmore questions we get asked
Do I apply to the district council or the National Park?
The Park, if your address is inside the National Park boundary, and here almost all of them are. The Authority is the planning authority in its own right rather than an extra layer on top of the district. Sending it to the wrong office does not get it forwarded, it gets it returned, so it is worth checking the address first.
We only want the same render in the same colour. Is that an application?
No. Renewing an existing finish like for like is maintenance and needs nothing from anybody. What changes that is a change of material, a change of texture, or a noticeably different colour on an elevation the public can see. If you are unsure, send us the postcode and a photograph and we will tell you where it sits.
Our building is split into flats. Who instructs external render?
The freeholder or the managing agent, almost always. External walls are usually retained by the freeholder rather than demised with the flat, so a leaseholder cannot order the work on them. We are happy to quote for an agent or a residents group, and to send the same written quote to more than one person so nobody is guessing.
How long does the render itself need before it is finished?
Longer than the trowel work suggests. The basecoat has to cure before the topcoat goes on, and cold or wet weather stretches that. A lime job is slower again, and it should not be rushed with heaters. We put the sequence and the likely waiting days in the quote rather than leaving you to find out.
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Know which office to ask before you start
Thomas taps the elevation, works out the right system for the wall and tells you what needs asking first. The visit and the written quote are free.