Cleaning & Painting Render and PebbleDash
Many homes in the UK have render or pebble dash on the outside. Over time discolouration, dirt and staining can appear. Many homeowners would love to clean it up but simply aren’t sure where to start.
In this blog, I aim to give you tips on how to clean and refresh the look of your home’s exterior.
The first subject to discuss is safety. Unless your home is a single-story bungalow or suchlike, you are going to be working at height. Many homeowners will simply use ladders. However, I have to strongly discourage you from doing this as it is simply not safe. Tower scaffolding and Scaffolding is readily available to hire. The hire company will come and put it up for you and show you how to move it. When you’ve finished the job, they will come and dismantle it and take it away again. Whilst it adds a cost to the renovation, it ensures you are safe whilst working – it’s simply not worth taking the risk doing it any other way. We always use scaffolding and own our own.
Step one of caring for your external surface is to use a jet wash to clean the surface down. Again, if you don’t own one, they’re readily available to hire. Use a long-handled brush along with the jet wash and scrub any dirt off. This will also remove any loose debris from the surface.
The next step is to use an anti-fungal treatment on the surface. This protects the surface against mould and green moss growing. Before applying the treatment, it is imperative that you protect your windows and doors very carefully. The treatment needs to be applied liberally and can be sprayed on, brushed on or a roller can be used to apply it. We would recommend spraying as this ensures it goes absolutely everywhere, which is particularly difficult to achieve on pebble dash with a brush or roller.
Once the treatment is dry you can either leave the surface if you’re happy with how it looks or prepare to paint it.
If you want to paint, it is essential you use a primer before the paint as this seals the surface and gives the paint a bond to adhere to. Again, primer can be sprayed on, or applied with a brush or roller. We would always recommend spraying for the same reasons as above. Applying any treatment or paint by hand on a rough surface takes a huge amount of both time and energy.
Once the primer is dry, apply a second layer if necessary, and then once completely dry, brush the surfaces down again just to ensure there is nothing loose.
You have two main choices for your topcoat, you can either use a waterbased masonry paint or a silicone render. The paint, as you would expect from the information already provided, is best sprayed on to gain an even coat. Two-three coats of your paint should be applied wherever possible. For a render coat, you would need a professional to come and spray it on as the products aren’t readily available from DIY stores. Silicone renders come in as many colours as masonry paint and should last for many extra years.
As an example For us to undertake this work for you the process would take between two and three days on an average three-bed semi-detached house, depending on the weather conditions and size of the property. You need to be prepared to keep uncovering and recovering your windows and doors if it cannot be completed in one day. One of the other benefits of spray painting is that it takes a fraction of the time of using a brush or roller … and dries much more quickly too. Layers can, therefore, be built up much more quickly than applying by hand and you save the amount of paint been used.
One final point, neighbours. The jet washing stage can lead to dirt being sprayed onto your neighbour’s property so it is always wise to warn them and assure them you will clean up after yourself. Also, if you spray any of the products and your property is attached to another, you will need to protect the boundary on your neighbour’s side to ensure no product ends up on their home.
Often the expense, time, and hard work it takes to do all this yourself are greater than the cost of bringing a company like us in to do it for you. But if you do wish to undertake the work I wanted you to know exactly what is involved.
I hope you have found this blog useful. If you have any questions, comments or would like to know more about our services, please just get in touch.
Jason.
