Ok the full story is. The house is 110 years old, the top half had two renders on it and bricks on the bottom half, separated by a decorative ledge two courses thick. It is cavity wall.
The renders were, an original rough cast that was covered by a thick layer of render that was like a badly iced Christmas cake, a bit like giant aertex badly applied, however it did have a bell cast.
When these renders were hacked off, the wall was found to be in a very poor condition, many bricks had moved the mortar was crumbling away and there were no lintels over the windows.
We got a bricklayer to secure the structure of the building mortaring in the bricks where necessary, put in lintels and generally make good.
We then have had two different renderers on the project; the first applied a slurry coat with SBR and put wire mesh around the building, this stopped further damage to the mortar and bricks.
Then there was a dispute about number of days required to finish the job and another renderer was engaged.
The second renderer applied the scratch and topcoat.
The brick ledge going round the building has about 20 bricks missing, these are in the top course of the two courses.
Before the scratch coat was applied I asked for these to replaced and all mortar made good, the project manager told me that this was unnecessary as this could be done after the render was applied and painted. So the work continued.
I have gone up on the scaffolding every day and only recently started worrying about the finish, as the project manager mentioned that he wanted to get the scaffolding down.
So I asked about the bell cast and the missing bricks and the overall finish as I thought there was still quite a lot to be done, he replied that a bell cast was not required as the house was originally designed without one.
This prompted me to get reading about rendering and looking at other houses around which all seem to have bell casts.
I have posted some pictures,
1. A section of the wall showing an undamaged part of the ledge, the wood is a scaffolding plank, it clearly shows no bell cast.
2. A bit at the side of the house where there is a clear gap between the mortar and the ledge, there are about twenty of these mainly smaller.
3. Rendering around the flashing on the conservatory
4. A missing brick in the ledge, top course
5. A section with two or three missing bricks, the scaffolding goes right up to it, the reason for these bricks not being replaced I suspect.
Current position is that I was with the project manager this morning, he suggested putting a ’fillet’ my word round the building and painting it in.
I said this was unacceptable and that I wanted a proper bell cast put on, and that all missing bricks should be replaced in the ledge and all mortar made good before work on the bell cast was to start.
I also said that this needed to be painted in and then a final coat of paint applied to the house to ensure a clean finish.
The project manger suggested getting the renderer who did the work back to fix it, an offer I refused, saying that I wanted someone else.
I guess my questions are,
1 Can a bell cast be added on here?
2 If it can, can it be applied onto the paint if it is keyed or does the render need to be hacked back?
3 Am I right in insisting that brick ledge is made good before work starts on the bell cast, if indeed it can be added?
4 Is this a big job? Say more than 5 days or less?
As I am writing this I know in my heart of hearts that this is a poor finish, I have been financing the project as it goes along, but I do have a fair sum held back.
The rest of the rendering is good, although the beading at the corners had their edges showing after the top coat was applied, these are white and after painting they are not noticeable and do give a straight edge.
I am at a loss to understand why the bottom of the render is so bad, as i am sure he could have done it much better if he had wanted to.
I want to get the job finished to a good standard but don’t want to get to a place where we get into a total breakdown of relations.
So working with the project manager to get the job done is my preferred route.
Please forgive me if I have been using the wrong names for things, I am not in the building trade and am trying to learn about this as fast as I can.
Also when I say project manager, he is a small builder using sub contractors to do the work.
