"Booty" wrote in message
...

Getting it rendered didn't even enter my head even though that wall is
subject to the worst of the weather.

It didn't need it, and, the man who did the repointing used a diamond
cutter disk ( several ) to cut back the existing mortar about 1 cm into
the joints before repointing to effect a good joint.

I was down there doing the renovations much of the time he was there and
when he left each evening during the cutting back stage I actually looked
at what he had been doing and he did cut back that depth.

Another reason is that I'm not keen on rendering.
The rear wall of the property was rendered teens of years ago - it used to
belong to my wife's parents before we renovated it so I know the history -
and it adds complexity when window frames etc need changing, especially
matching in any patch render.

Also, we noticed during renovation, that, a few hairline cracks in that
rendering caused some damp patches to appear indoors ( solid 9" wall on
the rear elevation ) quite a distance from the cracks and that damp was
difficult for us to diagnose being that the whole wall was rendered and we
couldn't see beneath.

Some parts of that rendering also 'tap hollow' now, so in years to come,
more work needed there though the damp ingress cured for now.

Properly pointed bricks will never tap hollow.

We still own the house, my daughter lives there, but if money was no
object I'd prefer to have that rendering totally removed from the rear
elevation, the bricks cleaned up properly and the whole rear wall re
pointed.

The house is in Accrington Brick ( NORI - engineering brick, they don't
usually need protecting when pointed properly ) and the repointed wall now
looks great and the internal damp issues on that wall have vanished since
the repointing.
It looks much better than the rendered rear wall.

Personally, if in your position, rather than spend your money on re
rendering after 'striping' and re pointing, I'd look at the respective
costs of having the stripped and previously rendered bricks, cleaned
properly of all old rendering and just have them re pointed.
I'm assuming it wasn't rendered from new and that there are good BRICKS
underneath.

For new rendering to adhere properly in the longer term they will be
stripping anyway, but they may not strip as well as they should if it is
being re rendered because any deficiencies wont show for years.

The cost of stripping properly might not be that much different to the
cost of the re rendering afterwards and any flaws will not be hidden under
the new render.
And patch repairs to the pointing will be easier to do in years to come.

But I don't know your house and I'm not a builder - you need to research
it yourself.
Just as we did with all aspects of the renovation we did.

Hope this helps.

certainly does

many thanks

trying to scout out decent builders in my home town

got my eye on a local outfit building an extension.......

--
http://www.gillsmith999.plus.com/