Hello everyone
I've just had some work done on the front of our house by a local plastering / rendering firm found on one of those "recommend a tradesman" sites.
It's a 1930's house with a square bay on the front, which is timber frame. We had the old render removed, down to a layer of what looked like bitumen coated hessian sheeting from when the house was built. New steel mesh was fixed to this, nailed into the timber frame. Scratch coat and beading then went on, left to dry, then followed by the top coat about a week later.
Everything looks great - the finish is smooth, beading is plumb, the bellcast beads at the bottom are spot on....
About a week after the top coat was applied, I noticed very fine (and I mean very fine) hairline cracks have appeared all over the front surface of the square bay. You can only see these up close, plus there's a crack about 1 - 1.5mm wide and 50mm long on the front corner where the bellcast bead returns 90 degrees to the side.
It's difficult to tap for any hollow sounds as the bay is timber frame.
I've mentioned this to the renderer, who came round when I was at work and had a look. I was told to expect cracks of 2 - 4mm in the render on a timber bay.
This hasn't happened on the sides of the bay, nor on any areas where we have re-rendered over brick. All the work was done at the same time.
I was wondering if anyone could offer some expert advice on whether this sounds right. Should I expect cracks like this? Should they just be painted over, or should they be dealt with by the renderer?
It sounds weird to me to expect cracks of 2-4mm on new render - what's the point in getting it replaced? I wasn't told to expect this at the start, otherwise I may have reconsidered and just gone for a patch up job.
Any advice much appreciated. Thanks very much.
I've just had some work done on the front of our house by a local plastering / rendering firm found on one of those "recommend a tradesman" sites.
It's a 1930's house with a square bay on the front, which is timber frame. We had the old render removed, down to a layer of what looked like bitumen coated hessian sheeting from when the house was built. New steel mesh was fixed to this, nailed into the timber frame. Scratch coat and beading then went on, left to dry, then followed by the top coat about a week later.
Everything looks great - the finish is smooth, beading is plumb, the bellcast beads at the bottom are spot on....
About a week after the top coat was applied, I noticed very fine (and I mean very fine) hairline cracks have appeared all over the front surface of the square bay. You can only see these up close, plus there's a crack about 1 - 1.5mm wide and 50mm long on the front corner where the bellcast bead returns 90 degrees to the side.
It's difficult to tap for any hollow sounds as the bay is timber frame.
I've mentioned this to the renderer, who came round when I was at work and had a look. I was told to expect cracks of 2 - 4mm in the render on a timber bay.
This hasn't happened on the sides of the bay, nor on any areas where we have re-rendered over brick. All the work was done at the same time.
I was wondering if anyone could offer some expert advice on whether this sounds right. Should I expect cracks like this? Should they just be painted over, or should they be dealt with by the renderer?
It sounds weird to me to expect cracks of 2-4mm on new render - what's the point in getting it replaced? I wasn't told to expect this at the start, otherwise I may have reconsidered and just gone for a patch up job.
Any advice much appreciated. Thanks very much.
