If you are not someone who works within a trade, then chances are that you will find the idea of some of the terms pretty tricky to understand, or even tell the difference between. This is true for plastering and rendering, which can often be confused.

Of course, in the most part you are not going to need to know the difference as you will hire an expert to complete them for you. But, it doesn’t hurt to have some background into what they are and what you need to ask for when looking for a tradesperson to carry them out.

Rendering

Rendering is when you coat the exterior surface of a building and for this reason it comes with a higher percentage of cement. This higher level of cement means that the building not only looks great, but that it is tough, waterproof and fireproof too.

Rendering is usually made up of lime gypsum, sand, cement, drying additives, colouring and bonding agents too. It is layered onto the wall in a sheet, applied with a trowel and then, depending on the finish that you hope for, it will be finished off with a number of different tools. You can have a smooth render, you can have a textured render and you can ask for a patterned render too. It really is down to you what you want it to look like.

Plastering

Only interior walls are plastered. They are prepared in a way that makes them smooth and flat, which is ideal for painting or for wallpapering. Whilst the mixture that is used in plastering has many of the same components as what is used in rendering, plastering does contain a lot less cement.

It is vitally important that during the plastering and then decorating process that the plaster that has been added to the walls has time to dry and set. This can take as little as a week to happen, however, in some circumstances it may take up to a month. That said, there are things that you can do to speed things up, this includes keeping the windows open as well as the doors, and popping the central heating on to ensure that the space stays warm. However, you should never try to dry your walls too quickly, else you may find that they end up cracking. This can lead to more repairs and more cost for you to have to pay out.

You can tell that a wall is dry, because there will be no dark patches visible, the colour will instead be light and will be uniform across the entire surface. If you can see this, then you know that your walls are ready to be painted on.

The thing to remember about both of these things is that in order to ensure that it is completed to the right standard and is going to look the best that it can, you need to go to a professional. They will have the right tools in order to make sure that your plastering or your rendering is carried out as it should be and they can also advise you on which options are going to work out best for you.

It might work out more expensive, but we can promise you that you will be pleased that you invested in hiring someone who knows what they are doing and that you will have plastering that not only will stand the test of time, but that will look the best that it can too.