Rendering in Westbourne
Converted villas, blocks of flats and the flats above the shops, re-rendered in the system the wall behind actually needs.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Rendering in Westbourne mostly means the walls of flats: converted Victorian villas, the post-war and 1980s blocks, and the flats over the shops on Poole Road and Seamoor Road. Blown or cracked render is hacked back and re-coated in a system that suits the wall, lime on the old solid walls and a silicone or monocouche finish on block and cavity work. For the inside walls, see plastering in Westbourne.
Most walls in Westbourne are not owned by one person alone. A leaseholder on the top floor who has watched a crack open under the window. A managing agent with a list of defects from a survey. A freeholder of a converted villa where one side has gone green and another is sounding hollow when you knock it.
Whoever is paying, the answer starts the same way. We tap every Westbourne elevation, mark the hollow areas, look at the beads, the sills and the bottom edge of the coat, and find out what the wall is built from before anyone talks about colour. Then you get a written itemised quote that the freeholder, the agent or the residents can all read the same way. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
Villas, blocks and the flats above the shops
Painted render on the converted villas. A lot of the older houses in the side streets off Poole Road were built as single homes and later split into flats. Where they carry render, it is often an old sand and cement or lime coat that has been painted many times over.
Masonry paint on a solid Westbourne wall traps moisture, the coat behind it softens, and the paint blisters and flakes before the render itself lets go. On these walls the repair goes back in lime so the wall can breathe, and the finish is a breathable mineral paint, not another plastic layer.
Blocks from the 1960s onwards. Many of the purpose-built flats in BH4 have render panels between brick bands or across whole elevations. These fail in a predictable way: a crack steps down from the corner of a window, water gets behind the coat, and after a few winters of frost the render has parted from the blockwork in sheets. We hack off to a firm edge, stabilise the background with a primer, then put on a mesh reinforced basecoat and a silicone thin coat or a through-coloured monocouche topcoat. On a block that is already coming back to its bare wall, external wall insulation on insulation board is worth pricing at the same time, because the same scaffold serves both.
The backs of the shops. The Westbourne shopfronts face the street, but the flats above them look over service yards at the back, and that is where the render is usually worst. Cracked pebbledash, a Tyrolean finish half gone, patches of old sand and cement on different backgrounds. Access is tight, so a tower or a scaffold in the yard is agreed with the neighbours before the first visit ends.
Algae and green staining. Trees along the chines and between the blocks keep a lot of walls in Westbourne in shade. Where the render is sound, a clean down, a biocide treatment and a breathable coating sorts it. We will tell you when that is all it needs, and not sell you a new system.
Beads and the bottom edge. Salt carries this far inland on a south westerly, so galvanised beads rust inside the coat and split it from the corners. We fit stainless or PVC angle and stop beads, a bellcast bead above the damp course, and keep the render clear of the ground.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
One person to ring from the first visit to the last. 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.
On a Westbourne job 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 existing render like for like on a house is maintenance. A block of flats has no permitted development rights, so changing its finish needs planning. Inside the Westbourne conservation area, rendering over brick needs planning on a house as well; the council keeps the list. Insulation added behind render is building control work, set by Approved Document L.
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 three storey villa with a shared side path, a block of flats set back behind its car park, and a flat over a Poole Road shop reached from a rear service yard are three different scaffolds. 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 for a Westbourne render? 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.
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 of a Westbourne wall safe, sheet it if the weather is against us, and price the elevation once we can see how far the blown area actually goes. On a block or a flat over a shop, tell the managing agent or the freeholder the same day, and keep the pavement or the car park under a hollow patch clear. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring rather than use the form, and if we cannot pick up we ring you back as soon as we can.
The one local thing
Rendering in the Westbourne conservation area
The centre of Westbourne has been a conservation area since 1993. It takes in the shopping streets, Poole Road and Seamoor Road, with the Victorian arcade that links them. The arcade is listed, and so are the library on Alum Chine Road and the Grand Cinema. Much of what the council is protecting here is brick: facing brick, bands and dressings, and upper floors that were meant to be seen above the shopfronts.
That changes what you can do with render. Repairing an existing rendered wall in the same material and finish is maintenance, and you can get on with it. Putting render over facing brick that was never rendered, or swapping a smooth painted finish for a scraped monocouche in a new colour, is a change of appearance, and inside a conservation area it needs planning. On a listed building it needs listed building consent as well. The flats over the shops on those two streets are in or right next to it, so this is the first thing we check at the survey.
In practice the answer is often the gentler job anyway. Cut out the cracked render, repair it in a matching lime or sand and cement mix, and bring the whole elevation back together with a breathable paint. It is cheaper than a new system and it does not need an application. If a bigger change really is the right answer, we say so in writing before you apply, so the drawings match the job.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover all of Westbourne, BH4, from County Gates and the Poole Road shops down to Alum Chine, and the neighbouring streets of Branksome and Canford Cliffs. Westbourne sits under BCP Council for planning and building control.
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. Before you book a visit in Westbourne, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Westbourne?
Most repairs in Westbourne 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 Westbourne |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Westbourne. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Westbourne Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Westbourne. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Westbourne. |
Questions
Questions about rendering in Westbourne
I own a leasehold flat. Can I get my part of the render done?
Usually the outside walls belong to the freeholder, so the work goes through them or the managing agent. We are happy to survey and quote for them. If you are paying towards it, they normally have to consult you first under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
Is it worth re-rendering, or can the old coat be repaired?
If most of the wall is still stuck to its background, repair it. We tap every elevation and mark the hollow areas before we quote, so you can see how much has actually parted. When most of it has gone, patching costs more over time than a new system.
Which render suits an old solid wall?
Lime, or a breathable finish over it. A Victorian wall with no cavity has to dry out through its face, and a hard cement coat or a plastic-rich paint traps the moisture and pushes damp inside. Blocks and cavity walls can take a silicone or monocouche system.
How long does rendering a block take?
It depends on how much has to come off and how many elevations there are. Each coat needs to cure before the next, and we do not render in frost or heavy rain. You get a realistic programme in the written quote, elevation by elevation.
Is scaffold included in the quote?
Yes. It is its own line in the written quote, so you can compare it with other prices. If it has to stand on the pavement, BCP Council may need to license it first, and we arrange that.
Nearby, and next door
Rendering near Westbourne
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Rendering guides
Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Listed building consent for repointing and re-renderingEverything we do in Westbourne Rendering, all areas Every area we cover
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Get the render looked at properly
Thomas comes out, taps the walls and prices the job in writing. The visit and the quote are free.