Plasterer and Renderer in Liverpool
Three housing stocks in one city, and they want opposite things from a render.
Southport, the Sefton coast, Liverpool and West Lancashire
Three cities in one, as far as a wall is concerned
Liverpool is not one housing stock, it is at least three, and they want opposite things from a renderer. The inner districts, Anfield, Everton, Walton, Kensington and the streets behind them, are dense Victorian and Edwardian terrace built solid: one leaf of brick, no cavity, nothing between the weather and your inside plaster but the wall itself.
Ring out from those and you hit the inter-war expansion, the nineteen twenties and thirties semis along the arterial roads and around the parks, almost all of it cavity walled and a great deal of it pebbledashed from new. Ring out again and you are into post-war estate housing and the new towns beyond the boundary, built fast, cavity walled, and now all reaching the end of their original finishes at the same time.
There is no single right answer across that. The first thing worth establishing on any Liverpool job is which of the three you are standing in front of.
Solid walls, and the mistake that keeps repeating
On a solid wall everything that gets in has to come back out through the same wall. If it cannot, it comes out through the plaster instead, and the wall you were told was rising damp is very often a wall that simply cannot dry outwards any more.
The thing that stops it drying is nearly always a hard sand and cement render, put on across the inner districts in enormous quantity in the nineteen seventies and eighties. It seals the face. Water still gets in at the head, the joints and the reveals, then has nowhere to go, and eventually the bond lets go across a whole area at once rather than cracking gently.
Where render is genuinely the right answer on a solid wall, and often it is, it has to be breathable: anything hollow off first, basecoat with alkali-resistant mesh, primer, then a top coat that sheds water at the face and still lets vapour out the back. Putting a new coat over a failing one buys about three winters and then takes the new work with it.
Cavity stock, where the choice actually opens up
On the inter-war and post-war stock the picture changes completely. The outer leaf can get wet without the inside going damp, and the wall does not depend on breathability the way a solid one does. Silicone thin-coat, monocouche and traditional systems are all realistic, and the decision comes down to the look, the state of what is on there now and the budget.
Pebbledash is the main event on that stock. Sound dash can sometimes be overclad, which saves the mess and the cost of removal. Hollow, cracked or lifting dash has to come off first and it makes a serious quantity of debris. Which one you have is settled by tapping the elevation, not by looking at it.
It is also the stock where insulation is worth a conversation. Cavities of that period are often poorly filled or empty, and a rendered insulation system deals with the warmth and the finish out of the same scaffold.
We are a Southport firm that travels here
It is about fourteen miles from Liverpool Road in Southport to the city boundary and closer to seventeen or eighteen into the inner districts, so we are not going to dress this up as being local. Liverpool work is planned as full days on site rather than dropped in between jobs up the coast, and the estimate is written down before anything starts.
What we do bring is the coast. Southport and the Sefton shore give us a steady diet of wind-driven rain, salt-laden air and solid walls that have to be allowed to dry, which is exactly the combination the seaward half of Liverpool deals with. The dock-side elevations in Bootle and the front-facing walls in Waterloo and Blundellsands fail in the same way and for the same reasons as the ones we work on at home.
If what you need is a small internal repair, a firm on your own street will serve you better and we will say so on the phone rather than charge you for the mileage.
What we are asked for most in Liverpool
External Rendering
Re-rendering tired, cracked and blown elevations, including stripping off failed pebbledash first.
Read moreSilicone Rendering
Through-colour silicone over basecoat and mesh, breathable and never needing painting.
Read moreInternal Plastering
Skimming, float and set, ceilings and repairs, flat enough to run a hand across.
Read moreDecorative Plasterwork
Cornice, ceiling roses and panelled ceilings, restored where they survive.
Read moreRe-rendering the whole house rather than one elevation? See full house re-rendering, which is the same work priced and sequenced for every elevation of a Liverpool house at once.
Every district we cover in and around Liverpool:
Walton
Dense Victorian terrace around County Road, built solid.
Read moreAnfield
Tight terrace streets and a lot of failed cement render.
Read moreEverton
Surviving terrace alongside post-war and modern estate housing.
Read moreBootle
Dock-side terraces and inter-war pebbledash, with salt in the air.
Read moreLitherland
Canal-side terrace and inter-war semis, split between solid and cavity.
Read moreNetherton
Post-war estate housing and rendered panels reaching their age.
Read moreAintree
Nineteen thirties semis around the racecourse, dashed as standard.
Read moreKirkby
A post-war new town, all of it the same age at once.
Read moreCrosby
Solid-wall terraces and semis with salt-beaten seaward elevations.
Read moreWaterloo
Substantial Victorian and Edwardian villas near the front.
Read moreBlundellsands
Large period houses on open plots at the dune edge.
Read moreMaghull
Post-war cavity walls and a lot of internal work.
Read moreLydiate
Modern estates, older canal-side property and open ground between.
Read moreEverywhere else is on areas we cover, and the jobs we have photographed start to finish are on our work.
Questions from Liverpool customers
How far into Liverpool do you go?
All of it, and the districts around it. It is about fourteen miles from Southport to the boundary and nearer eighteen into the inner districts. We plan it as full days on site rather than dropping in, and there is no separate travel charge on the estimate.
My wall is damp. Will rendering fix it?
It fixes damp caused by wind-driven rain soaking into porous or failed masonry, which is common on exposed elevations. It does not fix a leak, a bridged cavity or a failed damp course, and plastering over a wall that is still wet just hides it until the new plaster fails too. Whatever is letting water in gets dealt with first.
Is a terrace in Anfield the same job as a semi in Aintree?
No, and that is the point of the district pages. One is a solid wall that has to breathe and the other is a cavity where the choice is open. The same specification on both would be wrong on one of them.
Do you charge to come and look?
No. Estimates are free and given in writing after we have come out and looked at the walls. We do not price rendering or plastering over the phone, because what a wall needs is decided by what is underneath it.
What customers said
4.7 out of 5 on Google and 5.0 from 35 reviews on MyBuilder, plus 100% recommended from 6 recommendations on Facebook. Every review below is verbatim from those profiles, and each one says which.
Anthony did an outstanding job pebble-dashing our entire house. It was a challenging project but he handled every aspect with professionalism and care—nothing was ever too much trouble. He worked incredibly hard and maintained a clean and tidy worksite throughout. We couldn’t be happier with the result.
Couldn’t be more pleased with the quality of rendering. Clean and tidy workmanship undertaken with the minimum of fuss. The finished job looks amazing. Recommend BIRKDALE PLASTERING AND RENDERING without reservation and would be more than happy to employ them in the future.
I found Anthony to be very reliable - turned up exactly when he said he would. Really pleased with his work which was carried out to a very high standard. Would have no hesitation in hiring him again. Definitely recommend.
I received a first class service from Birkdale Plastering. Anthony always attended as arranged. He was invariably polite and hard-working and cleared any mess before leaving. I am very pleased with the finished job.
Antony did a great job would highly recommend him
Render of an outside wall. Excellent job and finish Turned up when he said, cleaned up and took the time to protect the areas around the job. Would highly recommend to family and friends.
Areas we cover
Based on Liverpool Road in Southport. We work right along the Sefton coast, down into Liverpool, and inland across West Lancashire as far as Preston. Every town below has a page of its own.
Related services
Internal Plastering
Skimming, float and set, ceilings and repairs. Flat walls that take paint evenly and stay that way.
Read moreDry Lining & Plasterboarding
Stud walls, ceilings and insulated linings, set out square, taped and beaded before skimming.
Read moreDecorative Plasterwork
Cornice, ceiling roses and panelled ceilings restored, matched and run in where sections are missing.
Read morePlastering and rendering for Liverpool, ready for the decorator
If you have searched for a decorator in Liverpool, it is worth knowing what we do and what we do not. We are plasterers and renderers. We skim, patch, dry line and render, then leave the walls flat and dry so your decorator can paint them without filling and sanding first. We do not hang paper or paint. On a lot of Liverpool jobs the plastering is the part that decides how the finished paint looks, so it is usually the job to sort out first.
Liverpool work reaches us from across the city, from the Victorian and Edwardian terraces in the older inner districts to the postwar estates out towards Kirkby. Older terraces often still have lime plaster on timber lath, which sounds hollow when you tap it and comes off in sheets once it has lost its key. We will tell you where a wall can be skimmed over and where the old plaster needs taking back to brick and boarding out instead. Getting that wrong is what makes a fresh skim crack again a year later.
We are based in Southport, so a Liverpool job means coming down the coast through Formby, Crosby, Bootle and into the city. That is a run we already make, and it shapes how we work in Liverpool: we would rather set up for a full day or a full week on one address than drop in for an hour. If you want external rendering, internal plastering, dry lining or a media wall anywhere from Waterloo and Litherland through to the city centre and Kirkby, tell us the street and what the walls are doing.
Get a free written estimate
Tell us what the walls are doing and we will come and look. You will get an honest assessment and a written price, with no obligation and no pressure.
Get in touch
Tell us what the walls are doing and we will come and look. Free written estimate, no obligation.
- Phone 07923 545449
- Email anthony9thompson@yahoo.co.uk
- Address
Birkdale Plastering and Rendering
546 Liverpool Road, Southport PR8 3BG - Opening hours Every day, 7am to 9pm