Exterior Spray Painting in Pateley Bridge

What the age of the housing means for the walls

Of the 2,190 properties the Valuation Office Agency records around Pateley Bridge centre, 49.3% were built before 1919, well above the 21% average, and houses of that age normally have solid stone or brick walls with no cavity that stay healthy by drying outwards. On them we use only breathable masonry coatings, and where sound stone has never been painted we will often suggest leaving it that way. Across the other 50 North Yorkshire towns we cover, pre-1919 housing averages 29.7%, 19.6 points lower than here, so solid walls that need breathable coatings are more of a feature here than elsewhere in the county.

The interwar and postwar decades account for just 16.5% of homes here, against 42% on average, so heavy pebbledash and roughcast are less common than in many Yorkshire towns. Only 8 of the 203 towns we cover have a lower share of homes from 1919 to 1972. Across the other 50 North Yorkshire towns we cover, 1919 to 1972 housing averages 28.3%, 11.8 points higher than here, so dashed render is likely to be less of the work here than in neighbouring parts of the county.

Homes built from 1973 to 1999 make up 21.5% 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 47.6%, 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 26.0% semi-detached, 19.6% terraced and 6.6% flats. Across the other 50 North Yorkshire towns we cover, the detached share averages 36.9%, 10.7 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 73.0%, 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, 18.9% rent privately and 7.5% rent from a council or housing association. Across the other 50 North Yorkshire towns we cover, owner-occupation averages 69.0%, 4.0 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 Pateley Bridge compares with nearby towns

The share of pre-1919 housing is broadly similar in the nearest towns (47.2% in Summerbridge, 48.1% in Kirkby Malzeard and 39.1% in Grassington). The biggest contrast in house type is with Kirkby Malzeard, where 57.2% of homes are detached, a higher share than here, so a typical job in Pateley Bridge is more likely to be a semi or terrace with fewer elevations to spray. Renting is at a similar level across the area, 26.4% of households here against 21.7% in Summerbridge, and on any 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 11.1% in Kirkby Malzeard to 22.3% in Grassington, and Pateley Bridge sits within that range. Kirkby Malzeard has the most recent building of the three, with 18.5% of homes dating from 2000 onwards, so through-coloured renders that may only need cleaning are more common there than in Pateley Bridge.

What the figures suggest about a quote

The most common home around Pateley Bridge centre is a detached house: roughly 930 of the 1,960 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 510 households, where the side elevation is usually the main addition to the front. The largest group of properties was built before 1919, so the survey also decides whether a wall should be coated at all, and with what.

With this much pre-1919 housing, listed buildings and conservation areas are more likely here than in most of the towns we cover, so if yours may be one, check with North Yorkshire Council before booking any change of colour or painting of bare masonry.