External weathering to walls of brick and block and Rendering.

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External weathering to walls of brick and block.
In exposed positions such as high ground, on the coast and where there is little shelter from trees, high ground or surrounding buildings it may well be advisable to employ a system of weathering on the outer face of both solid and cavity walling to provide protection against wind driven rain. The two systems used are external rendering and slate or tile hanging. 

Rendering.
The word rendering is used in the sense of rendering the coarse texture of a brick or block wall smooth by the application of a wet mix of lime, cement and sand over the face of the wall, to alter the appearance of the wall or improve its resistance to rain penetration, or both. The wet mix is spread over the external wall face in one, two or three coats and finished with either a smooth, coarse or textured finish while wet. The rendering dries and hardens to a decorative or protective coating that varies from dense and smooth to a coarse and open texture.

Stucco is a term, less used than it was, for external plaster or rendering that was applied as a wet mix of lime and sand, in one or two coats, and finished with a fine mix of lime or lime and sand, generally in the form imitating stone joints and mouldings formed around projecting brick courses as a background for imitation cornices and other architectural decorations. To protect the comparatively porous lime and sand coating, the surface was usually painted.

The materials of an external rendering should have roughly the same density and therefore permeability to water as the material of the wall to which it is applied. There are many instances of the application of a dense rendering to the outside face of a wall that is permeable to water, in the anticipation of protecting the wall from rain penetration. The result is usually a disaster.

A dense sand and cement rendering, for example, applied to the face of a wall of porous bricks, will, on drying, shrink fiercely, pull away from the brick face or tear off the face of the soft bricks, and the rendering will craze with many fine hair cracks over its surface. Wind driven rain will then penetrate the many hair cracks through which water will be unable to evaporate to outside air during dry spells and the consequence is that the wall behind will become more water logged than before and the rendering will have a far from agreeable appearance.

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