Exterior Spray Painting in Burley in Wharfedale

What the age of the housing means for the walls

Of the 3,400 properties the Valuation Office Agency records around Burley in Wharfedale centre, 22.9% pre-date 1919 (close to 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 26.1%, 3.2 points higher than here, so cavity walls are more typical here than elsewhere in the county.

A further 37.1% were built between 1919 and 1972 (12.1% between the wars and 25.0% from 1945 to 1972, below 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 39.0%, much the same as here.

Homes built from 1973 to 1999 make up 22.6% 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 homes make up 38.2%, well above the 20% average for the towns we cover, and a detached house usually means four elevations, gable ends at height and a tower or scaffold for the upper walls. The rest of the stock includes 27.0% semi-detached, 24.5% terraced and 10.3% flats. Across the other 83 West Yorkshire towns we cover, the detached share averages 23.6%, 14.6 points lower than here, so a job here is more likely to involve four elevations and work at gable height than in the rest of the county.

Owners, landlords and timing

Owner-occupiers make up 81.9%, 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. Only 13 of the 203 towns we cover have a higher owner-occupation rate. Of the other households, 10.3% rent privately and 6.9% rent from a council or housing association. Across the other 83 West Yorkshire towns we cover, owner-occupation averages 70.4%, 11.5 points lower than here, so decisions about the outside of the house rest with owners more often than in the rest of the county.

How Burley in Wharfedale compares with nearby towns

The share of pre-1919 housing is broadly similar in the nearest towns (12.7% in Menston, 28.0% in Otley and 30.8% in Ilkley). The biggest contrast in house type is with Otley, where only 21.0% of homes are detached, so more jobs in Burley in Wharfedale involve four elevations and the access equipment that goes with them. Renting also differs: 17.2% of households here rent, against 26.9% in Otley, 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 32.3% in Ilkley to 44.3% in Otley, and Burley in Wharfedale sits within that range. Menston has the most recent building of the three, with 28.2% of homes dating from 2000 onwards, so through-coloured renders that may only need cleaning are more common there than in Burley in Wharfedale. Owner-occupation is higher here than in Otley, where 72.2% of households own their home, so fewer of the exterior decisions in Burley in Wharfedale rest with landlords.

What the figures suggest about a quote

The most common home around Burley in Wharfedale centre is a detached house: roughly 1,220 of the 3,189 households live in detached houses. Because elevations, gable heights and access vary so much from one detached house to the next, these are priced from the survey rather than from the front-elevation starting figure of around £1,200. Next come semi-detached houses, roughly 860 households, where the side elevation is usually the main addition to the front. The largest group of properties was built between 1945 and 1972 (the 98th highest share for that period of the 203 towns we cover), so chalky old masonry paint and patched render are the likeliest extras.