Rendering in Woodlands, starting at the bottom
On low lying ground the bottom two feet of a rendered wall does more damage than the other eight, and it is the part most quotes skip over.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most render failures on low ground start at the base of the wall. Render run down into wet soil wicks water up behind itself, and no amount of good work higher up the elevation makes up for it.
The calls here follow a pattern. A wall that is stained and green along the bottom, render blowing off in a band at ankle height, and a bungalow where the damp inside runs along the skirting on one wall and nowhere else.
That is a base detail problem far more often than a system problem. The survey covers the whole elevation with a hammer, plus a hard look at where the render meets the ground and how the ground falls away. Then the hack off, the beads, each coat, the scaffold and the waste go in writing on separate lines.
The work
Bellcast, base detail and everything above it
Where the render stops at the bottom. A render should finish clear of the ground on a bellcast bead, which kicks the face out so water drips off rather than running back behind the coat. Run into the soil and the render becomes a wick. On the older properties here the render often goes straight into a flower bed or a raised path, and that alone accounts for most of the damp we are called to. Approved Document C is the standard that deals with resistance to moisture from the ground, and the principle behind it is simply that the wall has to be able to stay dry at its base.
Ground levels and what sits against the wall. Part of this job is often not render at all. A path laid over the old one, a bed built up against a bungalow, a soakaway discharging next to a gable: those get pointed out and noted on the quote, because re-rendering over them is spending money on the symptom.
Tapping and hacking off. Sound render rings and blown render sounds hollow. We tap the whole face, take off what has parted, then clean down, prepare, stabilise anything dusty with a primer and cut a key where the background is too smooth. Brick spalled at the arris is cut out and made good before a basecoat goes near it.
The system on top. On a sound cavity wall a silicone thin coat is the usual answer: primer, a mesh and scrim reinforced basecoat, then a through-coloured topcoat scraped or floated to a texture off a sample board. Monocouche suits a long plain bungalow elevation. Sand and cement still does for garages and plinths, and older acrylic and polymer rich finishes are the ones you find crazed.
Lime where the wall is old. A period wall built pre-1919 is solid and breathable, and a plastic rich coat leaves moisture trapped in it, which on damp ground is the worst possible combination. Those elevations get a haired lime basecoat, a soft topcoat and limewash or a breathable mineral paint so the wall can dry through its face.
Insulation, cracking and staining. On a cold cavity wall, EWI, external wall insulation board with a render carrier and mesh, is worth pricing alongside a plain re-render, with Part L setting the thermal standard. Otherwise the routine faults are a crack wide enough to take a coin, a coat starting to delaminate around it, pebbledash or Tyrolean hiding both, and green algae staining a shaded elevation, which is a clean rather than a render job unless the wall behind is wet.
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.
Planning here sits with the New Forest National Park Authority rather than a district council. Part of the area falls inside the Forest North East conservation area, where the appearance of a building is controlled, and there are 2 listed entries in the parish. Outside those boundaries rendering an unlisted house is normally permitted development where the finish is similar in appearance to the old one, and the National Park property map will confirm what covers your address. Insulated render is the version that also brings building control in, because it changes the wall's thermal performance.
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 long bungalow elevation comes off a tower where the ground is firm, a two storey house on soft ground needs the scaffold on proper sole plates, and a rear wall reached through a side gate has to be hand loaded. 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. If render is already blowing off in a band at the bottom of a wall, the water is behind it and a frost will take the rest, so that is an autumn call rather than a spring one. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Low ground, and why the base of the wall decides everything
Parts of this area sit in flood zone 2, the band where flooding is possible rather than likely, and the watercourses run close. You can check an address on the government flood map in a minute. For a render job the significance is not a flood event. It is that the ground around a house here is wetter for more of the year than it is a few miles inland, and a wall in contact with wet ground behaves differently.
That changes three things about the specification. The render has to stop clear of the ground on a proper bellcast bead, with a visible gap, rather than run neatly into the soil so the finish looks tidy. The ground has to fall away from the wall, which sometimes means a path cut back or a bed taken down before the scaffold goes up. And the system matters more, because a sealed coat over a wall drawing moisture from below traps it and pushes it inside. If you are comparing quotes, ask what happens at the bottom two feet. Anyone talking only about colour and texture has not looked at the part of your wall that fails first.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Woodlands, Netley Marsh, Bartley, Ashurst and the villages on the northern edge of the forest, broadly SO40, 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
Woodlands questions we get asked
Why does our render blow off along the bottom of the wall?
Almost always because it is in contact with damp ground. Water moves up behind the coat, the coat loses its bond, and a frost breaks the rest. Stopping the render clear of the ground on a bellcast bead and lowering what is heaped against the wall solves it more often than a new system does.
Can you just patch the bottom band?
Sometimes, and we will if the rest of the elevation is genuinely sound. More often the same cause has run further up than it looks, so we tap the whole face first and show you where the hollow really stops. Patching to the wrong line is money spent twice.
Do we need to move the flower bed?
If it is heaped against the wall, yes, or at least cut it back and get a gap. It costs nothing compared with the render and it removes the cause rather than covering it. We will say so on the quote even though it is not our work.
Does being in a flood zone affect a render job?
Not in the way people expect. It does not stop the work or add a consent. What it tells you is that the ground stays wet longer here, so the base detail and the choice of a breathable or a sealed system matter more than they would on dry ground.
Is a bungalow cheaper to render than a house?
Usually, because much of it comes off a tower rather than a full scaffold, and access is a real line on the quote. Ask how long it takes and a bungalow is often quicker too. Against that, a bungalow has a lot of wall close to the ground, so the base detail is a bigger share of the job.
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Get the bottom two feet looked at properly
Thomas comes out, taps the elevation, checks where the render meets the ground and prices the base detail as its own line. The site visit and the written itemised quote are free.