Rendering questions, answered straight

It depends almost entirely on the wall, which is why we quote on site rather than over the phone. The things that move a rendering price most are the condition of the substrate, the height of the walls and whether scaffold is needed, how easy the site is to access, and how much preparation has to happen before any render goes on. A bare brick wall in good order is the cheapest thing to render. A painted wall that needs stripping, or a wall with failed render that has to come off first, costs considerably more. Give us a call and we will come out, sound the wall, and give you a fixed written price with no obligation.

Cement render is sand, cement and lime. Acrylic render is the same base with polymers added. The polymers make it flexible, so it moves with the wall instead of cracking, and they improve adhesion so it bonds to surfaces cement render cannot hold onto, like blueboard and Hebel. Acrylic also resists salt and wind driven rain better. Cement render is cheaper, harder and more breathable, and it is still the right choice on stable solid masonry. Most Sydney jobs use a cement base with an acrylic top coat.

Texture coating is a thick, tinted acrylic finish applied over render as the final surface. It contains graded aggregate which gives it a consistent grain, and it is coloured right through rather than painted. It is significantly thicker and more durable than paint, it hides minor imperfections in the wall underneath, and it typically lasts two to three times as long as a painted finish before it needs attention.

Every house is different, so we price after seeing it rather than guessing over the phone. The main things that decide your number are the total wall area, whether the house is single or double storey and therefore whether scaffold is needed, how good the access is, the condition of the brickwork or existing render, and whether paint or failed render has to be removed first. Rendering the front facade only is naturally a much smaller job than doing the whole house. We will walk the property with you, explain what we find, and give you a fixed written price you can compare against anyone else.

You render onto blueboard with an acrylic system and full mesh reinforcement, not with standard sand and cement render. Blueboard is a sheet product and adjacent sheets move independently, so a rigid cement render will crack along every joint. The correct system is an acrylic base coat with alkali resistant fibreglass mesh embedded across the whole wall, then a build coat, then texture. Anyone quoting plain cement render over blueboard is quoting a job that will crack.

No, and this is one of the more common causes of render failure we get called to. Hebel is extremely absorbent and will suck the mix water out of a conventional render before the cement has hydrated, leaving a weak render that never gains proper strength. It needs a purpose made system with polymer content that retains water in the mix. Using non specified products can also void the Hebel panel warranty.

Yes. Face brick with a hard fired surface has less natural key than common brick, so it needs either a mechanical key or a bonding slurry applied first so the render has something to grip. Once that is done it renders very well. The wall also needs a full wash down and any failed mortar joints raked out and repointed before we start.

Fences are priced on the length and height of the fence, how many piers there are, and the condition of the existing blockwork or brickwork. Both faces plus the top all need coating, so a fence has more surface area than people expect from looking at it. It is one of the smaller jobs we do and one of the most visible, which is why so many clients start here. We measure and quote on site, free, with a fixed written price.

Yes, and it makes an enormous difference to how a wall looks. The critical requirement is that the drainage behind the wall has to be working first. A retaining wall has wet soil against its back face permanently, and if that water cannot drain away at the base it will be forced through the wall and push the render off from behind. We check the drainage and the weep holes before quoting the render.

Drummy render has lost its bond with the wall behind it, leaving a void. You find it by tapping the wall, where bonded render sounds solid and drummy render sounds hollow. It often looks completely intact from the outside, which is why the affected area is usually larger than people expect. Drummy render has to be removed before recoating, because anything applied over it will fail with it.

Masonry walls do. Brick or block needs rendering to give a flat, true surface for the waterproofing membrane and the tiles. Plasterboard and villaboard walls do not need render, they are tiled directly once waterproofed. Where you have a mix, such as a brick external wall and stud walls elsewhere, the brick gets rendered and the two surfaces are brought to the same plane so the tiling runs through evenly.

Yes. Internal masonry walls render very well and it is a common job, either to flatten out old uneven brickwork before painting, or as a decorative finish in its own right. Internal render is finished to a finer standard than external work because it is viewed close up and often lit from the side, which shows any imperfection in the surface.

Yes. A large share of our retail and hospitality work is done overnight or over a weekend so the business can keep trading. We show the after hours loading on the quote up front rather than adding it later. Working in an occupied building means proper dust containment and leaving the space genuinely clean and usable by opening, which we treat as part of the job rather than an extra.

It is a cement based finish built up in multiple thin passes and burnished with a steel trowel at exactly the right point in the cure, which compresses the surface and gives it a subtle sheen with visible tonal movement. It gives you the look of raw concrete on any wall without pouring concrete. Each wall comes out slightly different, and that variation is what people are after.