You may find the title of this blog post a little strange, bearing in mind that we are a company who offer rendering services, telling you that exterior wall rendering is not a good idea?
Bear with me on this, and let me explain, it will only take 5 minutes or so….
When it comes to exterior wall rendering, you don’t want to remove render if you don’t actually need to.
This is because if your render is in OK condition, with maybe one or two areas requiring attention, removing all of it it can rip the bricks away beneath, which could cause expensive problems later down the line.
Rendered walls also protect your home from dampness and moisture, adding a layer of insulation.
This can extend your house’s lifespan by ten or twenty years. Respect your render, it’s doing you a favour.
Removing Exterior Wall Rendering That Does Not Need Replacing Is A Very Bad Idea.
Exterior wall rendering is meant to give your walls extra protection from the weather.
It can help to improve the appearance of your house and even help to keep heat in the building.
This is only true if used in connection with a protective and weatherproof exterior wall coating.
The traditional way of rendering external walls is to apply a mix of sand, cement and lime to the walls.
This can lead to problems over time as the mix can become loose and cause cracking, especially if no weather protection is present on the wall.
Leaving render bare, grey and unpainted, is a recipe for disaster.
However new render mixes now use silicone which helps to increase the flexibility of the mix and reduces the chance of it failing.
There is also what is known at Through-renders, which have through coloured properties and are largely resistant to moisture.
This makes them a much better option for homeowners looking to re-render their property, although this is not a service we offer anymore.
They also take less time to complete and cost much less than other options.
Patch Repair Is Better than render removal
Many homeowners are wrongly told, usually by small-time general builders local to their area, that their entire house needs re-rendering.
Stop! Do you know how much HASSLE that is?
How much dust, dirt and debris, noise, pounding vibration that would cause, and they could be there for several weeks?
The lack of privacy, and coupled with the security risk with having your home enveloped in scaffold, which is very handy for burglars and other miscreants?
What about the waste produced from these unnecessary render removal works?
Yes, no matter how eco friendly you think you are, guess where that rubble is going?
To landfill.
Or if you have made the mistake of paying some cash-in-hand cowboy to do the work, it will appear at a local beauty spot near to you anytime soon.
Yep, well done, hippy.
Having your entire house re-rendered is not for the faint hearted and if you have ever heard the phrase “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut” then this would be a prime example of that.
Having your house re-rendered when it does not need to be is harming the environment and render removal can damage your house.
Below is a house we refurbished recently and as you can see when we encountered a gable end full of cracks we soon found out that the only bad render was the areas around the cracks, the rest was fine.
So we cut out the cracks and removed the hollow render in those areas only, and then repaired the affected parts with sand and cement render.
If the render on your walls is in fairly good condition, removing it forcibly, may end up destroying the bricks or blocks beneath it, ripping away the face (outer edge) of the brick, and undermining the tensile strength of the very fabric your house is constructed from.
Doesn’t sound a good idea so far does does it?
Patch render repairs are perfectly adequate in most cases however matching them in to the existing surface takes a fair amount of skill, and if you plan to repaint the wall using normal masonry paint, there is a chance that the repairs will show through the paint, especially in direct sunlight.
So what is the best course of action?
Wall Coating over the repaired patches of render is the best option,
If your property has been in the same spot for a while and you have noticed that the render is looking a little tired, or maybe you are in the process of selling your house and want to freshen up the outside, then a wall coating over the top could be exactly what you need.
This is where your existing poor quality render is removed, any cracks and loose bricks are repaired, and then a wall coating is applied to improve the look of the exterior.
The best part is that a wall coating not only looks great but it also offers many benefits, from protection from the elements to never fading colours.
In fact, a lot of wall coatings are actually super hydrophobic and this means they repel water like a non stick Teflon™ frying pan, preventing it from penetrating the walls.
Because our wall coatings are much thicker than paint, they will hide all evidence of any render repair. Masonry paint will not.
Of course we do get to see some properties where the majority of the rendering is in terrible condition and is loose, so it is safe to hack it off from the house without damage.
However saying that, in the above photo, the render was literally hanging off the wall, but removal still pulled out much of the mortar joints, which you can see on the right of the photo.
It costs less to have the render repaired rather than replaced.
Rendering is a popular form of exterior wall covering, as it can improve the appearance of your home and protect it from the elements. It can also be coloured to suit your style and is cheaper than brick, stone or timber cladding.
Rendered walls can also be matched with external insulation to boost energy efficiency and reduce your heating bills in the winter.
This is because rendered walls are more breathable than other types of cladding, which can help prevent condensation in the wall.
There are many different types of render to choose from, including traditional sand and cement and flexible, breathable polymer modified render.
It can hide poor-quality or mismatched brickwork on period properties, and give a sleek finish on modern homes.
It Takes A Shorter Amount Of Time to patch repair rendering.
If you’re looking for a way to give your house a better look and protect it from the elements, you might be interested in rendering. It’s a simple process that can help improve the aesthetic of your home and also raise its value in the long run.
Another reason to render your house is if you’re experiencing problems with water ingress or penetrating damp.
Rendering can prevent these issues from occurring by blocking the path of water in to your property, and it can also keep your home protected against unwanted condensation.
So in summary, if your house does not need to be fully re-rendered, we advise you NOT to have the work done, you may regret it if you insist it all needs to come off and be replaced.
In some cases, it can be classed as “wilful damage” on any home insurance claim in the future and they may refuse to pay out.
If you asked us, for example, to visit your house and told us you want a full re-render as someone told you that what needs doing, but upon inspection we find the render is in good, repairable condition, we will not accept the job and we will tell you why!
Why the hell would we want to wilfully damage a customers house?!
Removing render is a physically demanding hard job when the render itself does not need to come off.
It has to be forcibly removed, either with a hammer and chisel, or with a mechanical chisel.
This is the same with a pebbledash wall covering, if it is firmly adhered to the wall beneath, you will rip out the bricks that actually hold your house up in the first place!
Instead have it patch repaired, with the addition of a textured exterior wall coating to offer complete weather protection for the next 20 years!
Give us a call to find out more, and costs, on 0800 970 4928
Or send the team and email here.