The finish on a rendered wall

[helpfulplanner]

Hi,

I have a query about rendering and painting. I got someone round to render a large area of front garden walls (some of which is retaining wall). The finish looks very good from afar and for most of it close up, but some patches (particularly the fiddly bits like the slight curve at the top in places) look a bit crumbly and seem to have a thin top layer of quite loose sandy material. There are also one or two slight cracks where the curved top starts at one point.

The builder did say it was drying very fast because it was a very hot day, so I don’t know if this is a factor plus I’m yet to seal it (with watered down masonry paint) and then paint it. Before I get the builder back to have a look at it I wanted to know if this kind of thing is quite normal or not, and if I brush, seal and paint over the lose bits would that be fine or am I storing up problems for later? Don’t want to bother the builder by getting him back to look at something that is normal, but at the same time it wasn’t a cheap job overall so want it to be done properly.

Cheers for any advice!

 

[trowelmonkey1]

picture might be helpful HP.

Sounds like the render is thin in places and that's why it's crumbly and cracked, possible heat would have aided cracking but not if it's applied correctly/thickly enough and covered with a wet blanket afterwards to cure, he probably should have also told you to give it regular drink of water if it was so hot and dry.

how soon did the cracks and crumbling appear?

i'm no render expert though so see what the other guys have to offer.

 

[helpfulplanner]

Thanks – in the end I got the builder round to look at it again as I thought its better to deal with it properly, and he was fine about it. Admitted it had probably been a bit hot and dried out too quickly in places and he’s going to redo those bits. If he’d told me to keep it watered I would have done and we could have avoided the problem. Cheers for the advice though.