Exterior Spray Painting in South Cave

What the age of the housing means for the walls

Of the 2,600 properties the Valuation Office Agency records around South Cave centre, only 16.2% were built before 1919, against an average of 21%, so most walls here are twentieth-century or later cavity construction: render or brick over blockwork, which suits a sprayed masonry finish once loose or chalky paint is dealt with. Across the other 29 East Riding of Yorkshire towns we cover, pre-1919 housing averages 17.1%, much the same as here.

A further 33.4% were built between 1919 and 1972 (4.2% between the wars and 29.2% 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 29 East Riding of Yorkshire towns we cover, 1919 to 1972 housing averages 36.1%, 2.7 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 35.0% of properties here (well 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 55.6%, 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 33.2% semi-detached and 1.0% flats. Across the other 29 East Riding of Yorkshire towns we cover, the detached share averages 38.4%, 17.2 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.

Terraces are relatively rare here at 10.0% of homes, so most jobs involve at least one exposed side elevation as well as the front and back.

Owners, landlords and timing

Owner-occupiers make up 83.7%, 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 8 of the 203 towns we cover have a higher owner-occupation rate. Of the other households, 10.9% rent privately and 4.6% rent from a council or housing association. Across the other 29 East Riding of Yorkshire towns we cover, owner-occupation averages 74.8%, 8.9 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 South Cave compares with nearby towns

The nearest towns have less pre-1919 housing (7.2% in Elloughton, 5.4% in Brough and 4.7% in Swanland), so old solid walls are a bigger part of the work in South Cave than around it. The biggest contrast in house type is with Brough, where only 40.9% of homes are detached, so more jobs in South Cave involve four elevations and the access equipment that goes with them. Renting also differs: 15.5% of households here rent, against 20.5% in Brough, 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 29.8% in Brough to 39.5% in Elloughton, and South Cave sits within that range. Brough has the most recent building of the three, with 33.9% of homes dating from 2000 onwards, so through-coloured renders that may only need cleaning are more common there than in South Cave.

What the figures suggest about a quote

The most common home around South Cave centre is a detached house: roughly 1,300 of the 2,346 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 780 households, where the side elevation is usually the main addition to the front. The largest group of properties was built between 1973 and 1999 (the 19th highest share for that period of the 203 towns we cover), so roofline boards and cladding often join the walls in the same quote.