How much to remove roughcast render & repoint stonework on listed house?

anewloginapparently

Hi all, 

I'm buying a small two storey terraced house, that at present is covered in rough cast rendering that is fairly typical in Scotland.

A few of the houses on the same small street don't have rendering & look much better. 

I'm just wondering how expensive a job it might be to remove the rendering & back to the original stonework.

The house is listed so would need approval but I'm guessing this shouldn't be too difficult as it would be going back to the original fascia.

I guess the other alternative would be painting the house to a nicer colour. 

I've attached a photo of the house & some others in the street.

anewloginapparently

Thanks for reading. I've no experience of anything like this so any help is gratefully received.

Section62

anewloginapparently said:

...
The house is listed so would need approval but I'm guessing this shouldn't be too difficult as it would be going back to the original fascia.

I guess the other alternative would be painting the house to a nicer colour. 

You need to speak to the conservation officer before much else.

Listing of buildings isn't about keeping them 'original', it is about preserving the 'story' of the building.  This building's story is that at some point someone decided to roughcast the wall(s) - so the conservation officer may feel that the roughcast is an important feature of the building and it needs to be retained. (this is aside from the technical aspect of whether the roughcasting was done e.g. due to deterioration of the stonework)

The first rule of owning a listed building is understanding it is the building as it stood at the time of the listing which needs to be preserved - no matter how ugly or inappropriate (e.g. uPVC windows) if it was present at the time of listing then that is the feature which is meant to be there.  Whether it will be acceptabe to change the feature to something more 'in keeping' with the building as first constructed is largely down to the whim of the conservation officer.

Likewise, painting walls can be a real problem unless they are repainted in a near identical shade.  I would expect the conservation officer to say 'no' to painting, as the roughcast is closer to a 'natural' finish like the stone of the neighbouring properties.

In terms of cost - it looks like you've got cables, which may be the mains electric supply, across the frontage.  Removing the roughcast may well require these to be protected or moved. If so, allow a few thousand extra as contingency for the electricity distribution company to do what they need to do.

stuart45

Depending on the type of stone, and strength of render, you might find that even if you're allowed to remove it, there would be a fair amount of damage to the stone. I've done similar jobs removing render or paint on really hard stone like Chert, but it's not a cheap job.

anewloginapparently

Very helpful replies thank you.

shinytop

I think your house looks really nice as it is!

anewloginapparently

shinytop said:

I think your house looks really nice as it is!

Thank you. Maybe we'll be better keeping the roughcast & concentrating on the inside instead.

stuart45

I'd live in it for a while before thinking about it. Roughcasting is often done to prevent driving rain penetrating solid walls. It can however, have the opposite effect if done with strong sand/cement. When shrinkage cracks allow moisture into the wall, but trap it in there, the damp can appear inside. 
In time, it's worth asking the neighbours if they get any damp issues.

anewloginapparently

stuart45 said:

I'd live in it for a while before thinking about it. Roughcasting is often done to prevent driving rain penetrating solid walls. It can however, have the opposite effect if done with strong sand/cement. When shrinkage cracks allow moisture into the wall, but trap it in there, the damp can appear inside. 
In time, it's worth asking the neighbours if they get any damp issues.

That's good advice thankyou. 

There is some penetrating damp at first floor level, which has been attributed to the guttering (which I will get cleaned out and repaired), but I wonder if the roughcasting is playing a part in that too.