Pebbledash painted properly on a tall house in Orpington
Rusty bleed spots chipped out and spot-primed, then Dulux Weathershield Smooth in Ash White with anthracite grey accents.
A tall pebbledash house on an Orpington hill
A full exterior repaint of a pebbledashed house in Orpington, solving a few problems along the way, plus a clean of the high-level uPVC soffits and fascias.
Iron in the pebbledash, and how we paint it
It's a tall house on a hill, so we used ladders with scaffold on the sides and rear. Pebbledash often contains iron ore in the aggregate, and it was causing rusty bleed spots, so we chipped out as much of it as we could and spot-primed.
Painting pebbledash is a very messy job on a heavily textured surface, so masking up and covering properly matters more than anything. The paint has to be thinned to get into the deepest parts of the dash, which makes it more likely to fling in the wind, and it goes on slowly with a giant thick-pile roller carrying lots of product.
This one is Dulux Weathershield Smooth in Ash White, with anthracite grey accents. We also cleaned years of grime off the high-level uPVC soffits and fascias with a specialist cream cleaner, washed everything down and cleaned all the glass.
Weathershield Ash White, and the odd rust spot
Most of the rust spots won't be back. If one does show, it will be a speck of iron too small to find. Nobody can get every microscopic piece out of pebbledash, and we'd rather say so than pretend otherwise.
Before and after
The same view, before we started and when we finished.
Every photo from the job
Masking, scaffold on the hill, and the dash painted into every hollow.
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Rusty bleed streaks from iron ore in the pebbledash aggregate, one of the issues this job had to solve.
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Rust spots across the pebbledash where iron ore pieces in the aggregate had bled through.
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Rust staining from iron ore in the aggregate, spread across the pebbledash around the vents.
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The gully and pipe junctions at the foot of the wall.
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Years of grime on the high level UPVC fascia under the gutter.
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Scaffold on the gable end, with ladders for the upper lifts and the Splat Decorating banner at the top.
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Windows masked with polythene and tape before the thinned paint went on the pebbledash.
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Masking up properly matters on pebbledash, where thinned paint can fling and become airborne.
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The back of the house with every window and door covered before painting began.
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During: dust sheets hung and laid to protect the balcony and glazing while the walls above were painted.
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During: the car charger wrapped and taped so the brickwork around it could be painted.
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During: dust sheets down under the scaffold while the brickwork was painted white.
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During: painting the pebbledash from the scaffold walkway, a slow job with lots of product.
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During: thinned paint going on with the thick pile roller so it reaches the deepest parts of the pebbledash.
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During: the difference between freshly painted and unpainted pebbledash, side by side on the same wall.
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During: the base of the wall around a gully, with fresh repair work below the painted wall.
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During: the UPVC cream clean part way along the fascia, showing the grime being taken away.
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The view from the top lift of the scaffold, a reminder of how high this property sits on the hill.
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During: the concrete sill under an upper window going Anthracite grey to match the windows and doors, the pebbledash already white.
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During: brick and pebbledash painted white, the band along the base of the wall in Anthracite grey to match the windows and doors.
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During: the whole back of this tall Orpington house under scaffold, upper walls in white and the ground floor masked.
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Our van on the drive in Orpington, with ladders at the front and scaffold on the side of this tall property on a hill.
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The rear elevation painted in Ash White, reached from scaffold on the back of the house.
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The pebbledash under the dormer painted white, with the thinned paint worked into the deepest parts of the texture.
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The side wall painted white above the garden steps, with the view down the hill showing why scaffold was needed.
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The painted wall along the side passage steps, cut in neatly around the black pipework.
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The rear ground floor painted white under the scaffold, with the patio kept clean below.
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Looking along the scaffold walkway at the finished pebbledash on the side of the house.
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The gable in Dulux Weathershield Smooth Ash White, with full coverage into the pebbledash texture.
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The gable finished in Ash White, painted from scaffold at the top of the hill.
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The UPVC fascia cleaned with a specialist UPVC cream cleaner and washed down.
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The gable painted right up to the verge, at the top of a tall house on a hill in Orpington.
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The upper side wall and the rounded brick pier in white, with full cover into the pebbledash texture.
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The side passage wall painted white, cut in neatly around the black downpipes and window.
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The concrete sill in Anthracite grey, one of the accents chosen to match the anthracite windows and doors.
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Preparation: iron ore aggregate chipped out of the pebbledash, ready to be spot primed against further rust bleed.
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The giant thick pile roller head used to apply lots and lots of product into the pebbledash.
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The giant thick pile roller head, loaded with thinned paint so it reaches into the deepest parts of the pebbledash.
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Close up of the pebbledash, where pieces of iron ore aggregate have been chipped out and a rust mark still shows through.
They did a brilliant job painting the outside of my house.
The pebbledash under the dormer painted white, with the thinned paint worked into the deepest parts of the texture.
