Lime render costs help

[MartinB]

Hi, I'm new to the PP forum but have been visiting here in recent weeks to sponge up information as a new owner of a period property which was renovated in the 1980's. This is somewhat of a leap into the unknown as I've spent the last 18 years owning two relatively modern houses....

The renovation was performed to a good standard other than, though ignorance I believe, original clay lump walls were wrapped in a concrete render. This will all be coming off soon and replaced by a more appropriate breathable lime render. I've been seeking quotes for the work and costs for removal of the concrete render and replacement with lime render are coming in around £115 + VAT per square metre. There's about 65m2 to replace, with potentially more work required to internal walls and other details. Lime washing of the finished render I will do myself.

My question to the experienced PP community is does this price appear to be 'the going rate' for such works and if not, what should I be paying as a reasonable rule of thumb? Any recommendations for good builders / plasterers (I'm in Suffolk) also greatly appreciated!

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Welcome Martin to the forum.

Just bumping this up to the top again.

In the absence of any passing experts, the usual suspects will no doubt be along soon. :wink: Some of them will be rude enough to ask you to post some pictures of your new house because they are nosey. But not me. Oh no.

For my inexpert two-pennorth, I would say £115 + VAT per sqm sounds quite expensive, but you don't say if this is labour or materials too. I would have thought that as this is relatively unskilled work, a day rate of upto £250 is not unreasonable in my experience. Seven and a half grand (£115x65m2) buys 3 or 4 weeks of labour and materials at that rate. That sounds to me like much more than is needed to render 6mx10m...

I may of course be wrong. :roll:

You could reduce the cost by removing the render yourself... and in any event I would imagine you'll want to let the wall dry out for a while after removing the concrete before re-rendering. A few weekends removng the concrete and after drying you may be ready to start the rendering in early summer?

 

[skier-hughes]

We paid £100/m2 for internal plastering, inc materials, so it doesn't sound too bad to me. It might need to include scaffolding etc.

 

[robgil]

Dont be surprised if the clay lump needs repairing before you have it re-rendered. There will be a stone plinth of some sort under the clay lump at the base of the wall, has this been rendered over or is it still visible?

 

[robgil]

This is what I found under my cement plaster, still have the outside to do, I had to do a lot of work to repair these walls.

 

[Keithj]

The simple principle that I use (and most times I diverge from it, I end up regretting it) is to get three quotes.

Knocking off concrete shouldn't be a big job, but the mess underneath may take more repairing than you think.
Get a specialist to take a look! Better, get more than one. There are a few in Suffolk, some better than others.