Blown Rendering - Replace or Repair?

[no_spam_please]

I live in a 1920s mid-terraced house, that at some time in the past was rendered front and back. The rendering at the front of the house currently has a large bubble in it, and I'm not sure if the best fix would be to replace the rendering completely or remove all of it and go back to bare brickwork.

What's the opinion of the group? Will fresh rendering benefit by giving a protective layer over the brickwork, or can I get away with having it all removed (and having the pointing done at the same time)?

The front of the house faces east, and the majority of the rain I get comes from the west and hits the rear of the property. Personally I don't particularly like rendering, but if there's a benefit from having it replaced then so be it.

TIA

[Stuart Noble]

Maybe there was a reason for rendering it in the first place.

If you don't have a damp problem, I'd hack off and re-render the bubble. If the rest sounds hollow when you tap it, then more bubbles could be waiting in the wings

[Andrew Gabriel]

If the wall was intended to be rendered when the house was built, it will have been built with B-grade bricks (mishapes, broken, etc) by the apprentice brickie, and probably won't look good enough to be an exposed brick wall. Even if it wasn't originally built to be rendered, it was probably done for a reason which might become apparent when you remove the render. Finally, even if there was no reason, getting all the render off without damaging the brick faces and leaving them clean enough may prove impossible.

So if you do take it all off, be prepared to have to render it again if the brickwork underneath isn't up to quality.

[no_spam_please]

Sorry, should have clarified a little more. Mine is one of only a few houses out of a row of 20 in the terrace that has rendering, and there's a decorative piece of 'brickwork' on the front too which make me think the whole thing was cosmetic.

I've been told that the house was owned at some stage by a builder, and I think it was he who plastered all the ceilings (to a good standard, but every bloody room has a different pattern!!).

Thanks for the responses.

[Phil L]

Plastered? - do you mean artexed?

WRT the outside rendering, you may be as well removing what comes off easily, then rendering over the lot, and you'd be wise to do it in the next few months before it gets too warm, render sets better in cold, damp conditions, put it on in summer and it will take much longer to set...just make sure you have plenty of PVA adhesive and apply it to the cleaned up area mixed at 1 pva: 1 water...if you need to give more than one coat of render, rough up the first coat with a comb and apply the same pva mixture prior to second coating...a good flat surface can be had by using a damp sponge (those sold for washing cars are best) and rub it over in circular motions without applying pressure once it's firm to the touch.

HTH

[Lobster]

I'll definitely go along with Andrew's comment here... I bought a 1900's terraced house as a project which had been half-refurbished and then given up upon; the render (which was clearly not original) had been hacked away. I was intending to clean up the brickwork but it proved impossible by any reasonable means, and frankly it looks a right dog's breakfast:

I let out the place now and the external appearance doesn't bother the tenants, and I'm hoping that the cementitious stains will weather away over the years before I ever want to sell the property - otherwise I'll need to get it re-rendered I suppose. And God knows why it was ever rendered in the first place: 3 years later the property is perfectly dry inside throughout.

(Just a warning before you hack all yours off expecting it to look like new underneath!)

David

[meow2222]

Removing cement from soft brick causes a fair bit of brick damage, and the damaged bricks typically then deteriorates if not rerendered. OTOH cement render is butt ugly, needs repeated painting to look ok, and in solid walls is liable to cause damp problems. One option is lime render, which looks fine without paint, and doesnt have the donsides that come with cement. But this is the wrong time of year to apply it, when frost threatens. I'd remove what has blown, leave the rest, then lime it when frost has passed.

NT