Exterior Spray Painting in Birstall

What the age of the housing means for the walls

Of the 7,120 properties the Valuation Office Agency records around Birstall centre, 19.0% pre-date 1919 (below the 21% average), so solid-walled stone or brick houses that must be able to breathe sit alongside later cavity-wall housing that can take a wider range of coatings, and we establish which you have before recommending a system. Across the other 83 West Yorkshire towns we cover, pre-1919 housing averages 26.2%, 7.2 points higher than here, so cavity walls are more typical here than elsewhere in the county.

A further 46.1% were built between 1919 and 1972 (11.7% between the wars and 34.4% from 1945 to 1972, close to the 42% average for that period), and postwar estates of the 1950s and 1960s often mixed brick with rendered or dashed panels; a few system-built houses of that time have concrete panels that need a survey before any coating. Across the other 83 West Yorkshire towns we cover, 1919 to 1972 housing averages 38.9%, 7.2 points lower than here, so dashed and painted render is likely to be more of the work here than in neighbouring parts of the county.

Homes built from 1973 to 1999 make up 24.2% of properties here (above the 19% average), and houses of that era are mostly brick-faced, so the exterior work on them is usually rendered panels, timber cladding and roofline boards, where original timber or early uPVC soffits and fascias are often weathered, yellowed or chalky by now.

House type, access and what gets sprayed

Detached and semi-detached houses together make up 63.7% of homes here (40.2% semi-detached, 23.5% detached), and a semi usually has three elevations to spray: front, side and rear. The rest of the stock includes 26.9% terraced and 9.4% flats. Across the other 83 West Yorkshire towns we cover, the detached share averages 23.8%, much the same as here.

Owners, landlords and timing

Owner-occupiers make up 71.1%, above the 63% average for the towns we cover, so most exterior jobs here are long-term decisions about the house, which is why we would rather spend an extra day on render repairs than skip them. Of the other households, 15.4% rent privately and 12.9% rent from a council or housing association. Across the other 83 West Yorkshire towns we cover, owner-occupation averages 70.5%, much the same as here.

How Birstall compares with nearby towns

The share of pre-1919 housing is broadly similar in the nearest towns (21.1% in Gomersal, 13.7% in Drighlington and 16.9% in Birkenshaw). The biggest contrast in house type is with Birkenshaw, where 26.9% of homes are detached, a higher share than here, so a typical job in Birstall is more likely to be a semi or terrace with fewer elevations to spray. Renting also differs: 28.3% of households here rent, against 20.7% in Birkenshaw, and on a rented home the colour of the outside walls is normally the landlord's decision.

For housing built from 1919 to 1972, the main pebbledash and roughcast era, the three range from 43.7% in Drighlington to 46.5% in Gomersal, and Birstall sits within that range. Drighlington has the most recent building of the three, with 23.4% of homes dating from 2000 onwards, so through-coloured renders that may only need cleaning are more common there than in Birstall.

What the figures suggest about a quote

The most common home around Birstall centre is a semi-detached house: roughly 2,790 of the 6,946 households live in semi-detached houses. Our starting figure of around £1,200 is for a front elevation, so on a typical semi the side and rear, plus any garage or render repairs, are what the survey adds. Next come terraced houses, roughly 1,870 households, where the front and rear are usually the whole job. The largest group of properties was built between 1945 and 1972 (the 30th highest share for that period of the 203 towns we cover), so chalky old masonry paint and patched render are the likeliest extras.