"Rob Morley" wrote in message
t...
In article .com,
"
says...
Our house is a 1930s north London semi with brick on the bottom half
and pebble dash on the top half. The pebble dash is unpainted, and
rather patchy - there are some areas which have previously had dripping
from gutters (now fixed). There are a few small cracks in the
existing render.

We would like to do something to improve the appearance of the house.

1. Would painting the existing pebbledash hide the uneavenness of the
existing pebble dash?

2. We are considering re-rendering over the existing pebble dash,
either with one of the polymer based things like K-Rend or Pliolite, or
with a cement based render. My main concern with this option is the
adherance of the new render to the existing substrate. Is a cement
based render more likely to stick on properly that the polymer stuff?

Any advice appreciated!

If it's anything like my house (lime mortar and soft bricks) I'd
avoid the plastic coating or cement render. I've an idea that
chipping out the render around the cracks, grinding it down a bit and
mixing with lime putty would be a reasonable way of matching the
original finish - anyone care to put me right?

It is my view that pebbledash cannot be succesfully repaired to give a
uniform
appearance in most cases. I myself have experience with trying to blend in a
crack after it was repaired. It is not totally impossible but if there is a
lot of area
to repair it is too fiddly. The analogy that comes to mind is that of
repairing a scratch
or scrape on car paintwork. You can bodge it and use touchup paint, or you
can go
for a respray.
I'd say your options were to either paint it, or have it scraped off
and rerendered
( plenty of folks down my way having their houses rerendered after 70 years
of service ).
Just a personal view, paint looks nicer, particularly if you choose a nice
colour
( buttermilk is a favourite, anything but beige! ). I can imagine the need
for repainting
is a pain. but with one of the expensive paints ( Dulux weathershield, for
example ),
I believe 10+ years between coats is not unrealistic. I have a garage
painted in Dulux
Weathershield, and after 4 years there is no sign of discolouration or
deterioration.
It is a good idea to apply fungicide/bleach to the house first.

Painting pebbledash is a killer with a paintbrush, it will take days,
literally. I would look at
airless sprayers etc.

Andy.