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.
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Rendering in West Parley is often whole elevations. Most of the render here went on within a few years of itself and is weathering out together, so one hollow patch is rarely the only one. We tap the whole wall and chalk what is hollow; then it is cut back and patched, or re-rendered in silicone or monocouche, with lime on any older solid wall. A small conservation area covers the old church by the Stour. For inside walls, see plastering in West Parley.
The trouble usually shows when 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 in West Parley 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, not a guess. On West Parley 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 on a West Parley wall 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 in West Parley. Which of the two you want is worth seeing on a sample board, not a chart.
Traditional sand and cement, dash and Tyrolean. Plenty of West Parley 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, never 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
Re-rendering a gable or a whole elevation, step by step
In West Parley render usually means a pebbledashed or painted sand and cement gable on a post-war bungalow, or the upper half of a chalet or detached house. Thomas taps the whole elevation to find the hollow areas, checks the beads and the bellcast above the damp course, and looks at what the wall is built of.
The written quote lists access and scaffold, protection, preparing the wall, the system and the number of coats, beads and stop ends, and making good.
On a single storey wall we work from a tower; a two storey gable gets a scaffold that stays up until the last coat has cured. Windows, doors, paths and plants are sheeted. Old render is bagged and taken away, and the ground is swept every evening. If the block or brick behind is cracked or damp, you get a photograph and a price before we continue.
Re-rendering like for like is maintenance, so an ordinary house here needs nothing from the council. A small conservation area covers the old church by the Stour, and any listed building needs listed building consent before work that affects its character. Adding insulation behind render, or renewing most of an elevation, is building control work: Approved Document L sets the Part L standard the wall has to reach.
Cost
What is on the wall now and how high it goes
The area of wall is the easy part. What is already on it, and how high it goes, decide the price.
Access. A single storey West Parley bungalow wall comes off a tower. A chalet bungalow with a dormer gable, or a two storey detached with a conservatory against the back wall, needs scaffold built round it for the whole job. The HSE roof work rules make that a priced line.
The old render. Sand and cement or pebbledash from the late sixties and early seventies often looks sound but sounds hollow when tapped. Hollow areas are hacked off back to the block. Where the whole elevation has blown, all of it comes off, which is more labour and more waste.
The system. A through-coloured monocouche, a silicone thin coat over a base coat, or traditional sand and cement with paint each cost and look different. Most walls in West Parley are cavity blockwork and take a modern system well. The few older solid walls need a finish that can breathe, such as lime, so moisture can get out.
Ask any other quote which system and how many coats, whether the old render comes off or gets covered, and whether beads, bellcast, stop ends and the scaffold are included.
If it has started to come away
Render cracked, bulging or falling off
Render that sounds hollow when you tap it, has a crack you can push a coin into, or has started to bulge is letting water in behind it, and frost will push more off. If a piece is loose above a path or doorway, keep people from walking underneath.
Ring instead of filling in the form. The first visit is about safety: we take down anything loose, sheet the area if rain is due, then price the repair once we can see how far the blown render goes. Our normal hours are Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, phone, and if you miss us we will ring back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
These walls were all rendered in the same few years
Around six in ten homes in West Parley 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.
In West Parley, 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. Matching matters too. 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 in West Parley 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
Render work here, priced by Thomas Hannen
West Parley sits about 4.5 miles from our base in Boscombe. We render across the parish, Parley Cross, Longham, Hampreston and out to Ferndown, and all of it falls under Dorset Council. The firm you deal with is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in West Parley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Thomas Hannen owns it, and he taps the wall and writes the quote himself. Checkatrade carries a verified 10 out of 10 from a customer of ours. You will not be charged for the visit or the quote, which is written down and itemised.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in West Parley?
Most repairs in West Parley 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 West Parley |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for West Parley. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: West Parley Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around West Parley. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers West Parley. |
Questions
Questions about rendering in West Parley
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, doing the whole face usually looks better.
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 instead of 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.
Nearby, and next door
Rendering near West Parley
Nearby places we also cover for rendering, with straight-line distances from West Parley, and the other trades we offer in West Parley itself.
Rendering nearby
Our other trades in West Parley
Rendering guides
Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Listed building consent for repointing and re-renderingEverything we do in Ferndown Rendering, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
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.