Exterior wall coating advice

[Little Red]

Hi, I'm new here and after expert advice about the awful coating on out Victorian terraced house.
It's at least 15 years old and is cracked/blown in a few places and I'm just not sure what to do about it.
It seems to be some sort of textured paint coating with fibres in it. I've included images of it where it meets the brickwork of next door, plus the cracking and also some bits that have come off. The small pieces are the front and back of the coating.
Sadly (or maybe not) the walls under don't seem to have been stripped back when the coating was applied and there are multiple layers of paint beneath it.
More of the coating seems to be in good order than not, but this isn't just a case of stripping the bad sections off and repainting due to the texture of the surface.
All advice, especially from people who specialise in this kind of thing, appreciated.

 

[Mr diy a lot.]

a tragedy to put that stuff on nice brick wall of a historic victorian house. that sort of thing should be illegal! if it was my house i would not tolerate it and i would embark on the project of restoration. i think you are right that this is beyond a patch up repair job.

I would start chipping it off and see how easy it comes away. I have experinced this before and some bits fall away nicely and in big chunks but other bits more stubborn to the point where you might be sanding the surface of the bring with a rotary sander etc.

Looks like you have painted bricks underneath(certainly around door frames anyway) which is why it probably has not lasted very good but will help it fall off the wall easier. Also those layers of old flakey paint is probably the reason it has this product on it - the previous owner probably saw this product as a low maintenance solution to reduce his long term maintenance and on going painting etc. So if you embark on this you are probably opting to choose a high quality painted brick finish to restore the house which is work but once done would look tremendous and if done with careful prep and a very high quality paint could last 10 years before it needs recoated. (you would never get the red brick back like next door tho i dont think)

 

[Little Red]

Thanks for the advice. Totally agree, so many half jobs on this house make me really regret so many things about it!

The question is, is this something for us to do (we're pretty handy) or an expert? We're in Devon and I haven't been able to find a company that might be able to do this for us.

My concern is we start to remove and then find it's attached like the proverbial and we're left with something worse than we started with.

Anyone else any experience with this sort of coating?

 

[Mike13]

Some years back I bought a house with fairly high ceilings for each floor and the external rendering was applied so thinly that the bricks were only painted in a couple of places. Could not get a reasonable quote as they all wanted to use scaffolding.
I hired a 4,500 psi water jetting gun mounted on a trailer, de-rendered the tall 2 storey semi in 2 days, just using a ladder to get to each bit.