pebbledash options - keep or remove?

[aliceinwanderland]

Does anyone have any idea about whether it is easy to remove pebbledash and how much it might cost. After looking for ages we have finally found a property we can afford and ticks the boxes. Only thing is, it's not very pretty and like most of the houses round it - has original pebbledash (proper pebbles not stones).

I'm thinking about whether we could remove the pebbledash, render and paint. Wondering if that might cause more problems than it solves, and how much it might cost? house is 3 bed semi..

My sister had the pebble dash taken off their house (substantial Victorian terrace) my Mahon in london I think. Cost a lot but they repaired bricks that were damaged and reprinted. I think it was £4 or £5k.

There is now a mix on her street of pebble dash and brick and the brick ones look a million times nicer.

If it's a more modern house the render might have been put on to hide shitty brick work, but the older houses were done when it was fashionable and have nice bricks underneath. check out the neighbours houses.

Something like pebble dash I think isn't a huge deal - you can solve it but it costs and you can do it a year or two down the line. It's not like you have to look at it every day like a kitchen.

Reprinted should say repointed

I used to pick a piece off every time I visited my Grandad's house, could you try that?

There is always a compromise to be made with house buying, this might be it for you.

i hate pebbledash and our home has it on the front.
i had it painted. its much better.
ot wasnt the deal breaker for us, though we dodnt like it, a lovely new door and a charming paint colour and window boxes spruced it up.
id rather have new windows than smooth over the pebbles.
london vicrorian terrace btw.
good luck

Roughly how much was the paint job?

The back of our house is pebble dashed (Victorian Terrace), my guess is that it was done when a very small outbuilding was built (poorly) on the end of the house and they pebbled dashed the whole back of the house to cover up the bad brick work of the new outbuilding. Really wish they hadn't done it as they didn't do a very good job of pebble dashing either, the stones fall off if you brush against it lightly, the problem being is the render that they used is an inch thick and would be a hell of a job to get off, and it'll take the face of the bricks off with it. The front and the upper side of the house which you can see from the neighbours garden were left untouched and the bricks are beautiful.

Currently saving up for it to be removed and re-rendered smooth and painted over, unless the bricks can somehow survive.

Will never understand why it was ever fashionable, it's so grotty looking.

We've removed our pebbledash, since it was full of cracks and wicking in water. It was hiding a multitude of evils.

Fingers crossed, we get some render on, next week. Coloured stuff. No need to paint. Some of it has a nice shimmer to o it, much like natural stone.

Don't, whatever you do fall for that fake brick effect. It looks shite and falls off after a few years, as a lot of the people pushing it seem to have a whiff of cowboy about them.

That's all really useful, thanks. It really is a compromise that is making it affordable. I would live it but we will need to sell at some point and I think it is cracking anyway so we might as well take it off. Not in London so hopefully a bit cheaper. Assuming we manage to buy the house of course

hi
i paid cash to a local handyman .
£500 but that was about 10years ago
it's a bit faded and should be redone. will get that sorted when off the rental market and we are back home.
i would be setting aside 1k for a good job.

chloe
it is awful. the original brick work of our house is beautiful. these houses were full of character. most fireplaces and mantels ripped out, cornicing gone and all that pebbledash or harling as its called in Scotland. it is so sad
many houses are harled in Scotland. particularly new builds. its a way of disguising the nasty concrete blocks underneath.

how.anyone could do that to a london victorian house is beyond me
some if these fashions are just cruel.