Repairing render cracks before painting - any advice appreci

[tomyoung]

Hi, and thanks in advance for any help offered.

I need to paint my house both to protect against the weather and for appearance.
The original part of the house is timber frame (from about 1800) with weatherboarding.
The newer part (about half of the house) is block built.
Both of these sections have been pebbledashed and then rendered. The house was last painted about 7 years ago.

I have quite a few small cracks all over the house.
Some are hairline, can I just paint over these?
Some are bigger but less than 2mm. Do i need to dig these out and fill? If so, is an angle grinder, PVA then off the shelf render repair stuff the way forwards?

The biggest concern is cracks under each of the windows in the new part of the house. As mentioned above, this is blocks and render only. For these, people have suggested I angle grind the crack and fill with mastick then smooth off with an alcohol pad. Whilst some have suggested mastick then render on top to form the surface, others have suggested that this new, thin render will probably crack off very soon after.

Finally, any recommendations on masonry paint? My wallet sugests own brand, but would value any advice

Cheers
Tom

 

[roy c]

Hi Tom. First of all the paint, I would use Crown Stronghold masonry paint or Dulux Weathershield. Both are good quality paints. The small hairline cracks you will probably get away with caulking them if they are not too deep or too big. The cracks on the new part sound like they might need a bit more work on them, Cracks tend to follow the top corners and bottom corners of window openings and door openings. So if these are a bit bigger and deeper then you would be best to cut out either side of them about 200-300mm and put expanding metal over them and render them back in flush. There should not be any reason that the rest of your "new" render should" crack off" very soon. See what the other lads say as I think there is a fibre-glass sheeting that you might be able to use instead of ex-panding metal. I have read the
lads posts about it but I cant get it where I am... Good Luck