Rendering in West Parley, whole elevations
These walls were rendered within a few years of each other, so a single hollow patch is very rarely the only one on the elevation.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most of West Parley went up in one long run between the war and the early eighties, and the rendered elevations on it were finished within a few years of each other. They are now weathering out at the same time, which is why one hollow patch on a wall so rarely turns out to be the only one.
The call usually comes after a bit of the wall lets go. A corner by a downpipe. A strip under a sill. Somebody leans a ladder against the render to clear a gutter and finds it gives.
What we do about it is the same either way. We tap the whole elevation rather than the bit you can see has failed, chalk out what is hollow, and show you the extent before we talk about systems. Then it goes in a written itemised quote with the access, the preparation, each coat, the beads and the making good on separate lines. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
Render jobs on the post-war houses and bungalows
Working out how far it has gone. A mallet over the elevation, hollow areas chalked, and an honest number rather than a guess. On these houses the render is one age all the way round, so a failure in one panel is usually the first of several.
Patch repairs where they are worth it. Isolated blown areas are cut back to a firm edge, the background is made good and given a key, and the patch is floated out to the same thickness and finished to match. On a rear or side elevation that is the sensible spend and we will say so.
Full elevations in silicone thin coat. Where the tapping says the coat has gone across a wall, the whole face comes off and goes back as a system: a mesh reinforced basecoat, a primer, then a silicone topcoat scraped or floated. It is through-coloured, so nothing needs painting afterwards.
Monocouche. A through-coloured render put on in one build and scraped back the next day. It has a heavier grain than a thin coat topcoat and suits the plain, wide elevations on the bungalows here. Which of the two you want is worth seeing on a sample board rather than a chart.
Traditional sand and cement, dash and Tyrolean. Plenty of these houses are in a scratch and floating coat build with a dry dash or a Tyrolean finish on top. All of it can be repaired. The honest limit is colour: new dash beside fifty years of weathering reads lighter for a long time. The handful of older solid wall properties on the lanes are different again. A period wall of that sort has to breathe, so the repair goes back in lime and the finish stays breathable rather than sealing the moisture in.
Cracking, delamination and staining. Crazing across an old cement coat is cosmetic, and green algae on a shaded elevation is a surface problem that washes off. A crack from a window corner is movement letting water behind, so it gets cut out, meshed and made good. Where a coat has delaminated and parted from the brick it has to come off, because the frost opens it further every winter and eventually spalls the brick face underneath.
Beads, bellcast and stop ends. Angle beads at the corners, stop beads at the reveals, a bellcast at the base so water drips clear, and a movement bead where an elevation is long. Stainless or PVC rather than galvanised, so nothing rusts through the finish in five years.
Render over external wall insulation. On a house of this era the cavity is often narrow. If the wall is coming back anyway, insulation board or a render carrier fixed to the face and rendered over is worth pricing at the same time for the thermal gain.
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.
Re-rendering an elevation the way it was rendered before is maintenance, so on an ordinary house here nothing needs applying for. There is no conservation area in West Parley and the few listed entries sit away from the estates, but a listed building is a different conversation and needs listed building consent before anything comes off the wall. Adding insulation behind the render is building control work rather than planning, and Approved Document L sets the Part L standard a renovated wall has to reach.
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 single storey bungalow you can reach off a tower, a chalet bungalow with a dormer gable, and a two storey detached with a conservatory under the back wall 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. We are five miles away, so a West Parley address is normally looked at within a day or two. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
These walls were all rendered in the same few years
Around six in ten homes here were built between the war and the early eighties, most of them in the late sixties and early seventies. That changes how a render quote should be read. The coats on these houses went on within a few years of each other, they have taken the same weather since, and they are wearing out on the same timetable.
Two things follow from that. The first is that a single hollow patch is rarely the whole story, so it is worth paying for the whole elevation to be tapped rather than the failed corner. The second is about matching. On a street where the houses were finished together, a repaired panel sits next to fifty years of weathering on both sides, and no mix matches that. If the patch is on a frontage, doing the full face usually costs less than doing it twice.
So the useful question to ask any quote here is how much of the elevation was actually tapped, and what it sounded like. A price for a two square metre patch on a wall that rings hollow in four other places is a cheap quote for the wrong job.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover West Parley, Parley Cross, Longham, Hampreston and out to Ferndown, broadly BH22, 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
West Parley questions we get asked
One patch has come off. Does the whole wall need doing?
Not necessarily, but it has to be tapped before anyone can say. On houses of this age the render is all one generation, so a failure in one place often means the bond has gone in several. We chalk the hollow areas so you can see the extent yourself.
Will a repair match the rest of my dashed wall?
In material, yes. In colour, not for a while. Fifty years of weathering cannot be mixed into a bag, so a new patch reads lighter until it catches up. On a rear elevation that is fine. On a frontage most people prefer the whole face done.
Does a single storey elevation cost less to render?
The access side of it usually is, because a single storey elevation often comes off a tower rather than a full scaffold. The wall area is not always smaller, so the saving shows in the access line rather than in the whole price.
Do you have to take the old render off?
Only if it has let go. Sound render can often be prepared, stabilised and overlaid with a modern system, which saves a great deal of mess. Hollow render has to come off, because anything laid over it fails when the coat underneath does.
What time of year is best for this work?
Spring through to autumn, for the drying. Render will not go on into a frost or onto a saturated wall. We work in winter behind a sheeted scaffold when it suits, but we will tell you if waiting is the better plan.
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Have the whole elevation tapped, not just the failed corner
Thomas comes out, goes over the wall with a mallet, chalks the hollow areas and prices the repair or the system in writing. The visit and the quote are free.