Whyteleafe — Decorating

Painters and Decorators in Whyteleafe (CR3)

Whyteleafe climbs both sides of a dry valley cut through the North Downs, and much of its Edwardian and interwar housing was built with solid walls rather than a cavity. That changes what an outside coating has to do, and it changes how you get to the wall in the first place.

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What you put on a solid wall

A solid wall has no cavity keeping weather away from the inside face, so it relies on the outer skin shedding water and then drying out again afterwards.

Cover it in a thick, plastic-like masonry coating and you can slow that drying right down. The usual sign is paint lifting in patches a few years later, or rendering that sounds hollow when you tap along it. So exterior painting on a house of this age starts with the surface rather than the colour: sound the render across each elevation, cut out and repair anything that has blown, let the repairs cure properly, then use a coating that lets the wall breathe. Hairline crazing can be bridged and painted over quite happily. A crack that runs back to the brick is a fabric problem, and putting paint across it only hides it until the following winter. The repair side of that is our own team's work; the coating that goes over it is a decorator's, brought in and run by us.

Cold corners, and why paint alone will not fix them

Inside the same houses, black mould turns up in the corner of a room, behind a wardrobe, or on the reveal beside a window. That is a surface temperature problem rather than a paint problem. A solid external wall runs colder than the air in the room, moisture in that air condenses on it, and mould grows on whatever it finds there. Washing it down and painting over it puts the problem out of sight until the next cold spell. What actually changes it is treating the growth properly, dealing with ventilation, and in the worse cases taking the wall back and replastering so you are starting from a sound, dry surface.

Reaching the elevations on a valley-side plot

Gardens here climb or fall away sharply, and that decides how the outside of a house gets painted long before anybody opens a tin.

A tower or scaffold needs firm, level footing, and stepped or terraced ground means that footing has to be built rather than assumed. Retaining walls, steps and narrow side passages all affect where equipment can stand and how materials get round the back of the property. On the higher side of a plot, a gable can sit a long way above the ground it has to be reached from. None of this is complicated work, but it is worth an honest look at the survey, because access is one of the few things on a decorating job that can move the price a long way after it has started if nobody looked at it first.

More in Whyteleafe

Everything we do in Whyteleafe is on the Whyteleafe area sheet, and the full detail of how we approach this trade is on the decorating page.

Common questions

Q.01The masonry paint on our render is flaking off in patches. Does it just need another coat?

Usually not. Flaking in patches normally means moisture is moving behind the coating, or the render underneath has lost its bond. Another coat over the top will lift in the same places, so it gets sounded and repaired first.

Q.02There is black mould in the bedroom corner. Will a mould-resistant paint sort it?

It will slow it down rather than cure it. On a solid wall the cause is a cold surface and moisture in the room, so the answer is treatment, ventilation and sometimes replastering. Paint on its own buys you a winter.

Q.03Our garden is on a slope. Can the back of the house still be painted?

Yes, it just needs planning. Access equipment has to stand on something firm and level, so we look at the ground at the survey and put the cost of getting up there in the written price rather than raising it later.

Q.04Do you cover Whyteleafe?

Yes. We are at 27 High Street, Godstone, a short drive from the valley, and we have been building and refurbishing across this part of Surrey since 2005.