Cheam Plastering was invited to work alongside a multi award winning landscaping company.  Our instruction was to render all the retaining walls and to create straight lines with no joins or cracks.

This was not as simple as it sounds because the main contractor (not the landscaping company) had built the walls out of square.  This in turn meant that we had to dub out each end of the walls, feathering to nothing.  The walls had to be square to make the sandstone paving fit precisely.  Another issue that had to be taken into consideration was that some of the walls were concrete or joined to concrete.  Concrete walls tend to be smooth, because the material lays against a sheet of ply when poured.  This ply boxing is called shuttering.  To get over this we fixed EML sheets (similar to chicken wire) over the joints.  This helps prevent cracking.  We also rolled a coat of ‘Rendagrip’ over all the faced concrete.  It is a red colour as shown in the pictures and helps render adhere to smooth surfaces and helps prevent cracking.

In each coat or render we added fibreglass fibres and in the top coat we added lime.  Both of these additives help prevent cracking and also allow a little movement, for example expanding and contracting in summer and winter.

The protection involved was more extensive than usual because the sandstone paving used was not sealed, and both lime and sand and cement can stain very easily.

This job was later nominated for an award.