Façades
Render repairs, crack treatment, rustic or flattened finish: a sound façade protects your walls — and transforms the look of the house.
Why renovate a façade
Cracked or lifting render lets water reach the masonry: in time, it is the walls themselves that deteriorate. Between the heavy rain, the scorching summers and the tramontane — and the salt spray near the coast — façades in the Narbonne area work hard.
Our approach as masons changes things: before applying a finish, we deal with the cause — cracks, masonry repairs, rising damp — so that the façade renovation lasts, instead of hiding the problem.
Not every façade calls for the same treatment: moss and lichen on the least sunny elevations, saltpetre and rising damp in older houses, render gone porous elsewhere. These cases — and the question of external wall insulation, which is worth looking at when the façade has to be redone anyway — are set out in detail in our advice on renovating a façade in the Aude.
Our method
Four stages, always in this order — the render only comes third.
Façade survey
Cracks, render that sounds hollow, damp marks or efflorescence: we examine the real condition of the substrate before proposing anything — the survey is free.
Preparing the substrate
Cleaning, cutting back loose material, treating cracks and repairing masonry where the wall calls for it: render only holds on a sound substrate.
Protection, render and finish
Windows and doors, cills and floors are protected before spraying. The render is then applied and worked up to the chosen finish: it is the care taken over the junctions — window reveals, meter boxes, wall arrises — that separates a proper façade renovation from a simple freshen-up.
Handover and upkeep
A properly renovated façade needs little upkeep, but it does need some: a look once a year at the base of the walls, the window sills and the splash zones, and a gentle clean when the dirt comes back — never with a pressure washer, which damages render.
The finish
It is often the texture, more than the colour, that decides how a façade looks. Here is what the three finishes we apply look like.
Float finish
The surface is tightened up, almost smooth: it is the most understated finish, the one that brings out the colour rather than the texture. On our project in Saint-Marcel-sur-Aude, this is the finish chosen for the house and the garden wall.
Rustic finish
The grain stays raised. It catches the light and changes appearance through the day; it is also more forgiving of the small irregularities of an old background.
Flattened, fine grain
The grain is flattened after application: a light texture, midway between the two above. At Saint-Marcel-sur-Aude, this is the finish on the pool wall, close to the float-finished house without being mistaken for it.
The choice is made from samples, with our advice, and in front of your own wall: the same shade does not look the same depending on the texture chosen and the orientation of the façade.
A real project
On a façade, quality shows above all where the render stops — around a picture window, a recessed meter box, the corner of a wall. Here is a façade renovation carried out in Saint-Marcel-sur-Aude.
Scaffolding, protection of the joinery and the surrounding ground, single-coat render on the house, then the garden, pool, boundary and entrance walls: we also renovate the masonry structures that surround the house. The project site is described step by step in the Saint-Marcel-sur-Aude case study.
Your protection
Structural repairs and façade renovations are carried out to good building practice, with the statutory construction warranties for the work concerned.
1 year
Garantie de parfait achèvement
For the year following handover, any defects reported are put right by the company — the French one-year defects warranty.
2 years
Garantie biennale
This two-year warranty covers equipment that can be removed from the structure: taps, shutters, boiler…
10 years
Garantie décennale
For ten years it covers damage that affects the strength of the building.
In place
Assurance dommages-ouvrage
This insurance pre-finances repairs without waiting for a court decision. You are given the certificates.
FAQ
Do you need permission to renovate a façade?
In most towns, changing the external appearance (colour, finish) requires a prior declaration to the town hall, and some areas impose set colours. Near a listed monument or within a protected old town centre, the approval of the architecte des Bâtiments de France may also be required. We check your town's rules before work starts.
Is a crack in my façade serious?
It depends on the type of crack: hairline cracking in the render is cosmetic, whereas a structural crack right through the wall calls for masonry repair before any façade renovation. That is exactly what the survey settles — and what decides whether the façade renovation still holds up ten years later.
Is scaffolding needed, and what difference does it make to me?
As soon as the façade rises above ground-floor height, yes: it is what allows us to work flat against the whole wall rather than balancing on a ladder. Erecting it, hiring it and taking it down all appear on the quote, and depending on the ground space it needs, putting it up may require a permit from the town hall — something we check before work starts.
Can just part of the façade be repaired?
Yes. A spalled corner, a base course crumbling away, an area where the render has come off: a localised repair is treated in its own right — cutting back everything that no longer holds, a bonding primer, rebuilding in mortar in several coats, then a finish compatible with what is already there. That is what we did on a façade corner in Villeneuve-lès-Béziers.
Free survey on site: we tell you what is cosmetic and what genuinely needs repair.