When your terraced house needs repainting, it is worth going to the experts at this sort of thing, instead of a local painter and decorator.
We specialise in renovating, repairing and weatherproofing the outsides of terraced houses up and down the country and we want to show you one of our projects, a mid terraced home in Grimsby, Lincolnshire.
This is the sort of house that a traditional painter and decorator would not even touch, due to the poor condition of the bricks on the exterior walls.
That’s the main problem with choosing a local painter and decorator, they only want to PAINT, not to do any repair works to your home, meaning their paint job will last only 2 years at best.
Our exterior wall coating system includes a programme of repairs to the walls of your house.
Let’s be honest, would you attempt to apply paint to the wall below?
Funnily enough, neither would we.
But your local decorator would, and it would look terrible once he or she finished.
That’s not where we come from, we spend ages making sure the wall surface of your house is up to scratch before we even consider opening a tin of paint, and repairing damaged bricks is something we are particularly good at.
The walls on this home reveal typical signs of ageing and erosion to the bricks. All house bricks have a rudimentary weatherproof side to them, the side that faces outwards, and over the years that ability to repel the weather diminishes.
Water starts to soak into the bricks instead of running down the walls, meaning that when the winter comes, that water in the bricks actually freezes, causes a myriad of tiny fissure cracks, undermining the integrity and strength of the brick.
This can be adequately be visually described if you compare the 100 year old brick on the main house to the new bricks on their extension, in the foreground of the photo.
Brickwork, 100 years apart, and requiring some attention
The other problem with the older bricks on the main part of the house was the pointing, it was loose and in some places, actually missing.
Pointing is the mortar joins between each brick which hold the wall together, so having bits of that actually missing, is not a good sign.
The steps we took to renovate the walls.
The first thing we did is to replace the missing mortar joints, which as any builder will tell you, is a tedious and laborious process, taking a fair bit of time to complete.
Then any bricks not able to be repaired, we cut them out and carefully insert a new brick in its place.
When that is not possible, we build up the face of the brick again using sand, cement, and skill!
We then apply a bonded cement slurry, known as bagging, which seals the loose bits, fills in the millions of tiny cracks and holes, and renders the surface acceptable to paint.
This is the rear of the house with a bagging cement slurry coating
This process is achieved by masking up the doors and windows and laying dust sheets on the path as we don’t want to cause any mess.
As you can see, the lines of the bricks can still clearly be seen, retaining the character of the house.
Some owners of houses like this want the walls to be smooth, which we can do, with a coating of rendering, however that adds a fair bit of cost to the final bill, and takes 2 to 3 days longer to complete.
After this spray applied wall coating has dried, we paint a primer all across the walls, back and front, and allow to dry,
The final stage of the process is to spray apply an exterior wall coating, which you can see here
Once that has dried, we carefully remove all the masking paper and start the tidying up process.
We don’t leave any mess so all waste materials etc are carefully cleaned away for disposal, we don’t leave your house like a building site.
The main benefits of having an exterior wall coating on your house instead of paint.
- All repairs are done as part of the job
- All damp is cured, including condensation
- The wall coating will not fade, crack, chip or peel.
- This system is suitable for brick, render, pebbledash and tyrolean walls.
- Available across England and Wales
- The system can be applied all year round, even in winter
- All work come with a 20 year guarantee
- We are checked and vetted members of Trust a trader: Member number: TT21499
How to cheese off your neighbours…
One look at this contrasting setting shows you how bad the bricks were in the first place, compared to the neighbours home which now looks scruffy and unloved.
One final thing to finish it off was to paint the trim, the window cills and the plinth, in a matt black colour, finishing the whole job off to a well presented terraced home which will now last another trouble free 100 years at least.
If you can peek past that damn tree blocking the view (!) you will see the finished result at the front, guaranteed for 20 years
So there you have it, our brickwork repair and wall coating process explained in full.
This job took 3 days to complete from start to finish, in good weather.
Larger homes obviously take longer than that, but unlike a general builder who may run a few jobs at the same time, never focussing on the task in hand, our teams spend the whole time concentrating on renovating your home, and nothing else.
You can see a wide range of homes previously painted by us by scrolling up to the menu at the top of the page.
How much does an exterior wall coating cost?
That is always the number one question we get asked, and it is simple to find out.
Simply call us on 0800 970 4928 or send us an email and we can go through timescales and costs with you. If you email us photos of your house, that also really helps us get an estimate to you.
Speak to you soon.