Rendering in Wool
Estate housing rendered within a few years of itself, which is why a whole street tends to need the same work at the same time.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most of the housing here went up between the war and the early 1980s, so the render on it is all much the same age. That is why one street starts asking about the same problem in the same year, and why there is money to be saved by two neighbours getting the scaffold up once.
The pattern is familiar. Sand and cement or pebbledash from the estate years, sound in the middle of the wall, hollow low down and around the openings, with hairline crazing across the face and a crack or two running off a window head where the lintel sits.
We tap the whole elevation rather than the piece you have noticed, because that is what separates a morning of cutting out from a wall that has to come back to the blockwork. Then you get it written down: access, preparation, the system, the beads and the making good on their own lines. The site visit and the written itemised quote are both free.
The work
What the estate walls need doing to them
Sand and cement, pebbledash and Tyrolean. The finish most of these houses already carry. A scratch coat, a float coat and then a smooth face, a dry dash thrown on while the coat is green, or a Tyrolean flicked on. Patching one properly means matching aggregate size and colour, so we mix a sample panel and let you see it dry before the main wall goes on.
Hacking off what has blown. Blown render has parted from the block or brick behind it and it sounds hollow when you tap it. On this age of house the hollow band is usually low down, where splash back and a missing bellcast have let water sit for forty years. How far it runs decides whether you cut out panels or strip the wall.
Silicone thin coat. The usual replacement. Primer, a polymer basecoat with glass fibre mesh bedded into it, then a through-coloured silicone topcoat scraped to an even texture. It flexes a little, sheds water and holds colour, and on cavity blockwork it is a good match. Beads and stop ends at every opening and a bellcast at the base this time.
Monocouche. One through-coloured coat put on thick and scraped back the following day. Quick and hard wearing on a plain elevation with a sound background. Not the system for a wall carrying thirty years of patch repairs.
Lime render. The older cottages in the village centre are solid walled with no cavity and dry out through their own face, so they want lime rather than cement, two or three coats with hair gauged into the base. Cement on one of those traps moisture and puts damp inside a house that was dry.
Cracking, delamination and staining. Fine crazing across a float coat is shrinkage and cosmetic. A crack you can get a coin into is movement or a failed bead and wants opening up and reinforcing. Green algae and black staining on a shaded gable come off with a soft wash rather than pressure, which strips the surface.
Render over external wall insulation. Insulation board fixed to the wall as a render carrier, then mesh, basecoat and topcoat over it. On a cold estate house it is the one render job that makes a real difference to the heating, and Approved Document L sets what a renovated wall is expected to reach. It also thickens every reveal, so the cills and the pipework have to be planned rather than discovered.
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.
Replacing a render like for like is maintenance and needs no application. The older centre of the village sits in the Wool conservation area, where appearance is controlled, so a change of material or a markedly different colour on a visible elevation is a planning question, and the nine listed entries near here need listed building consent before anything comes off. Outside the boundary none of that applies to you. 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 semi on one of the estates, a detached bungalow with a carport in the way and a cottage on the village street are three different platforms before any material is ordered. 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 a panel has come away and left bare block showing, sheet it before the next wet week rather than after, because a soaked wall adds drying days onto the front of the repair. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
A whole street reaching the same age at once
More than half the homes here were built between 1945 and the early 1980s, and the peak years were the 1970s and early 1980s. Houses built within a few years of each other were rendered with the same materials by the same trades to the same details, so they do not fail at random. They fail together, in the same places: the base course where there was never a bellcast, the corners where the bead has gone, and the sills where water has been dripping onto the same spot since the house was new.
Two things follow from that, and both save money. The first is that a neighbour's wall is a fair preview of yours, so if the house next door has just had a hollow band cut out at the bottom, tap yours before it opens up. The second is the scaffold. It is a priced line on any two storey job and it does not care how many houses it serves. Where two neighbours in a semi or a short terrace want the same work, one platform across both is a genuinely cheaper way to buy it, and it also means the finish matches across the join instead of stopping in the middle of a wall. Ring together and we will price it that way.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Wool, Bovington, East Burton, Coombe Keynes and the villages towards Wareham, broadly BH20, with Dorset 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.
Questions
Wool questions we get asked
Why is it always the lowest part of the wall that lets go?
Because that is where the water has been. On this age of house there is often no bellcast bead at the base, so the render was taken straight down to the ground and rain splashing back has soaked the bottom of it for decades. The repair is to cut the band out, put a bellcast in and stop the coat clear of the ground.
Can two of us share a scaffold to save money?
Yes, and on a semi or a short terrace it is well worth doing. The platform is priced by size and by how long it stands, not by how many front doors it serves. If both jobs are booked together it goes up once, comes down once, and the finish carries across the join rather than stopping halfway along a wall.
Is thin coat render better than what is on there now?
For a cavity blockwork house, usually yes. A modern thin coat has a mesh reinforced basecoat, so it handles small movement without crazing, and the colour goes through the topcoat instead of sitting on it as paint. It is not automatically right for an older solid wall, which needs to breathe.
How long does a two storey semi take?
The trowel work is the short part. Scaffold up, preparation and hacking off, the basecoat and mesh, a curing period, then the topcoat and a clean down before the platform comes away. Cold or wet weather lengthens the curing rather than the working, and we put the expected sequence in the quote.
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Get the bottom of the wall looked at properly
Thomas taps the elevation, finds how far the hollow band runs and itemises the repair or the replacement. The visit and the written quote are free.