Advice On Extrernal Rendering

[ratkinsonuk]

I recently converted my garage into an office. The front now consists of a breeze block face with a double-glazed window, whilst the side is brickwork.

I'd like to render the 'new office', but leave the house as brickwork, so would like some advice on how to go about the task.

One house that's being built near me has just had a dark-grey material painted on. I'm assuming this is some kind of sealent? Should I use the same?

Is it useful to apply a wire mesh for the render to fix to?

What sort of thickness should I be looking for?

What finishes could I hope to acheive, and how do I create them?

Any help very much appreciated.

Rob.

 

[Smudger]

Rob - I don't know if this is available in the UK, but our French house is half stone and half reconstituted stone blocks. What a lot of people there have done is use a spray-on textured render, which looks fairly good as a finish. It is sprayed on and then textured with a brush. It covers the blockwork but doesn't add a lot of dimension.
Often people have more than one texture (eg stone and render or half-timber and render) and it doesn't look too bad. We are planning to have it done soon. It isn't horribly expensive.

Google 'spray on render'

Some is available in brick finish:
http://www.wbs-ltd.co.uk/renders_finishes_brickeffect.htm

 

[RogerS]

We recently had an extension rendered by our plasterer. He didn't apply any grey gunge nor did he apply any mesh. He rendered directly to the existing (painted) brickwork.

But then again his speciality is traditional lime plastering and pargetting and so maybe he was confident in his ability to do it this way.

Plastering...rendering...my route is to pay someone.

 

[Digit]

Blimey! Pargetters must be as rare as hen's teeth these days.

Roy.

 

[izalarfin]

Is it useful to apply a wire mesh for the render to fix to?
only over painted walls, walls that have green algae on should be cleaned off or meshed, bad cracked walls, walls that have had ronseal brick seal on them or other treatments.

What sort of thickness should I be looking for?
about 20mm applied in 2 coats, scratch coat, finish coat,

What finishes could I hope to achieve, and how do I create them?
as flat as you can, with a surface texture of your choice, generally float or sponge finish which is a light sand texture, or any you can think of.

outside rendering shows up any imperfections with shadows from sunlight so if don't get as good as you would like you can terelene over it,
I would as a plaster suggest you get a plaster into do it but if you really want to have a go I'll post again with all the help and tips I can give.