Anyone rendered their house?

[Babooshka1990]

The brickwork on our 1930’s semi looks quite scruffy, our dream solution is to render the entire frontage in white. Has anyone done similarly? Was it a massive job time wise? How expensive was it? Did it transform your home and was it worth it?

Rendering external walls that weren't designed to be rendered can be very damaging and lead to brick and mortar deterioration and damp internally. The white/cream render and grey windows combination is a bit of a fashion fad of the last few years. In time it will become very unfashionable and will devalue a house to some extent.

That’s nonsense. We’ve had K-rend for about 6 years and it’s a clean and bright as it was when it was applied (and we live on a busy road). It may be that it wasn’t done properly if it looks dirty. Our neighbours had it done by cowboys and theirs is green because of poor fitting especially around guttering etc.

I have rendering on my house, as do many others in the village because they are built of the local bricks, which are notoriously rubbish!
Unfortunately, it was done before the self coloured rendering was available.
I probably can't afford to get it replaced.

6 months yikes! I thought about a week 😂. The top half is actually already rendered (in that standard 1930s way) though it’s mismatched and looks a bit cracked now, so we would be updating that and doing the bottom half to match.

Just thinking about the ‘bricks meant to breathe’ advice, since ours is already half renders will they be different brick? Or is it better to have the bottom free of render? Not sure why it would be an issue if half has been done already

@AgathaX it honestly looks crap at the moment as I have an extension and a porch all in different brick then render on top. Certainly wouldn’t go for the grey windows I agree that it wouldnbe dated in a few years!

@Flangeosaurus was that cost for your whole house or just the front?

On an old house, don't, or ask a structural engineer first.
It might be better to get the house repointed, and get the porch rebuilt.

We had ours done a couple of years ago, in two stages for various reasons. It looks great, and took nothing like 6 months (unless you count the bit between stages when the workmen weren’t there!).

I’d say it was 4-5 days for each stage. Cost about 12k I think. No regrets, the brickwork beneath it was horrible.

Whole house

My house is a 1930's semi with a bay window.

House was originally pebble dash on the front and side, and under the bay window was brickwork.

We renovated the whole house and added K-Render over the pebbledash part.

So now we have a mix of K-render on most of the house, plus bricks under the bay window and around the porch. Been like that for 7 years and is fantastic!!

The rendering was done in a single day. Apparently it is best to do it in one go so that it's seamless as it is a full finish in itself I.e. it doesn't get painted

Rendering is a bit naff,what about some vertical cladding.

Don't know if this would be suitable but our house is Mock Tudor with half render and Tudor boards at the front. (Built 1989)

The render always cracked after a few years - only small ones but drove me mad.

Two years ago I found a company who replaced all the render and boards with a special type of UPVC.

To cut a very long story short we decided to go ahead and it was some of the best money we ever spent. House looks fantastic! Had a very experienced roofer out a few weeks ago to do a small roof valley repair and he was astounded to discover it wasn't render and wood as it has all the ridges and grooves similar to the original. Guaranteed for 20 years and never needs decorating. Cost just over £5k for half the front of a 4 bedroomed detached.

Sorry to add a boring comment, but it may give you further pause for thought. If your property is brick, you’ll need planning permission to render it.

It’s not nonsense though, it looked shit. House opposite did the same thing, they were out painting it within a year. Each to their own but personally I don’t like it, it’s everywhere.

You do not paint render, you wash it , you ruined it now

It was already painted.
But perhaps render is the wrong word, anyway it wouldn't fit in our washing machine.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but from what you have said, our LA very likely wouldn’t.

Still absolutely worth asking the question/submitting an application though, if it’s something that you really want to do.

Depends upon the type of render.

My PIL's house was rendered. Needed repainting quite often.

@Notaflippinclue we don’t fancy making our house look like a birdwatching hide

Depends if you want a damp house? I’m taking the render off as it is a nightmare!

Single skin buildings behave very differently to more modern cavity walled ones btw, so not all advice here will be helpful.

I recently rendered mine. I didn’t want to! But it had been covered in concrete which is not good for a timber-framed property.

In theory, you can render over brick. But you need to choose the right materials. Your building still needs to be able to breathe - you can’t run the risk of water getting in behind tiny cracks and then settling.

I can highly recommend Anglian Lime. Their website is fairly helpful (though not the prettiest!) and they are helpful on the phone. Once rendered, you then also have the choice of various colours (ie limewash products) to paint it with.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to go with the correct product. My house was fucked having been encased in concrete around 50 years ago. Please make sure that you choose an appropriate solution that allows your structure to do what it’s supposed to do!

Just to add, the “paint” afterwards is just as important. Don’t just go to a diy shop and buy any old exterior paint. No point spending out on breathable render and then covering it with an exterior paint that doesn’t let it breathe.

Sorry if I’m teaching granny to suck eggs, but I’m quite vocal in not wanting anyone to end up with the situation I had!