What a whole-house render quotation should include

Access, protection and stripping

Access comes first because the whole job hangs off it. A quote for the whole house should say how each elevation will be reached: full scaffold, towers for low walls, or a mixture, and whether the scaffold will be sheeted to keep rain and sun off fresh render. Sheeting is not a luxury on a thin-coat job; K Rend's instructions for its TC 15 topcoat require fresh render to be protected from rain and from drying too fast. Where scaffold has to stand on a neighbour's land, or over a conservatory roof, the quote should say how.

Protection is the next line. Windows, doors, sills, paths, planting and parked cars are covered before any stripping or spraying, because render dust and primer stain almost everything. Then comes stripping: which faces are being taken back to masonry, which old render is staying, and how the rubble will leave site. A heap of hacked-off render from a whole house is heavy and bulky, so the skip or bag collection should be part of the price.

House rendering ↗

Repairs nobody can see yet

Some of the work is hidden until the render is off. Bricked-up openings, cracked lintels, soft joints, spalled brick faces and old timber can all appear once a wall is stripped. A sensible quote prices the repairs that are already visible and then explains how hidden ones will be dealt with: typically a rate for common items such as repointing or brick replacement, with photographs and your agreement before extra work goes ahead.

Dubbing out belongs here too. A stripped wall is rarely flat, and deep hollows are filled with a stiff mix before the base coat so the render goes on at an even thickness. If the quote assumes a flat wall and the masonry turns out to be badly out of line, the base coat quantity changes.

This is also where building regulations can appear. Approved Document L counts replacement of the render layer as renovating the wall, and where the work covers more than half of a wall, or more than a quarter of the whole envelope, an insulation upgrade is expected where it is feasible. A whole-house quote should say whether building control has been approached, or leave the question clearly open for you to settle.

Beads, base coat and finish

Beads are small items with a large effect. A whole-house quote should mention a bell-cast bead along the base above the DPC, which Catnic describes as letting rainwater drain clear of the substrate, plus stop beads where render meets retained brick or stone and corner beads on every external angle. Missing beads show up later as cracked edges and render carried down to the ground.

The base coat line should name the product, its thickness and the mesh. K Rend's HP12, as an example, goes on at a nominal 4–6mm and needs alkali-resistant mesh at stress points such as door and window reveals. The finish line should name the system, colour and texture, include any primer, and say whether each elevation will be completed in one session to avoid day joints across open walls.

Fittings, finishing off and exclusions

Every house has things fixed to its walls: downpipes, satellite brackets, outside lights, alarm boxes, hose reels, trellis and cables. For each one, the quote should say whether it is removed and refitted, packed out so the render runs behind it, or left for another trade. Electrical items need a competent person, and gas or electricity meter boxes may need the supplier. Window sills deserve their own line: an old sill that will finish nearly flush with the new face needs extending or replacing so it throws water clear.

Then check the end of the job. Does the price include taking the scaffold down only after the finish has cured, cleaning off masking and splashes, filling scaffold tie holes in matching material and taking away all the waste? Is the product information for the system and colour included, so a later repair can be matched?

Exclusions are fine when they are clear. Window replacement, electrical work, roofline repairs and planning applications often sit outside a render contract. What matters is that each excluded item has someone else lined up to do it, and that the order is agreed. Planning is one of those items: in a conservation area, the national permitted development guidance says cladding a house with render needs permission.

When comparing two quotes, put them side by side against the same list of stages. A short quote that names the products, beads and repairs can be clearer than a long one that hides the stripping inside a single line. For more on the sequence itself, see the house rendering guide.

A hypothetical quotation, read line by line

For example, imagine a hypothetical one-page quote for a 1930s semi that reads: scaffold all elevations; strip render to front and side; repairs as found; base coat and mesh; silicone finish, white. It sounds complete, but reading it against the stages above shows several gaps.

The rear elevation is not mentioned, so it is either excluded or forgotten. Repairs as found has no rate and no approval step, so you cannot tell what happens when a cracked lintel appears. No beads are listed, so the bottom edge and the corners are undefined. There is no primer, although many silicone systems need one between base coat and topcoat. Sills, downpipes and the bay roof junction are missing, and nothing is said about sheeting, curing time or waste.

None of that proves the contractor would leave those things out; it means the quote does not say. Each gap becomes a question, and the answers turn a short quote into one you can compare fairly with another.

Related services

Before collecting quotes, the Wakefield rendering homepage helps decide whether the house needs repairs, a recolour or a full re-render, which changes which of the lines above should appear at all.