Roughcasting and harling across Renfrewshire

Roughcast past its best on a house in Johnstone, Renfrew, Erskine, Linwood, Bishopton or Barrhead? Send us the details and we'll pass them to one trusted local firm based in Paisley, who'll come and look and give you a price. Free, and no obligation.

The firm handles full re-roughcasting, new harling on extensions and bare walls, and smaller roughcast and pebble dash repairs. If you live in Paisley itself, our roughcasting in Paisley page goes through the job step by step. This page is about the towns around it, because the weather and the houses vary more across Renfrewshire than you'd think.

Johnstone

Johnstone has an old core of stone-built streets laid out in the late 1700s, and then large council estates such as Johnstone Castle and Cochrane Castle built after the war. Much of that post-war housing was roughcast from the start, and on many houses it's either the original coat or one redo from decades ago.

The common fault here is roughcast that's sound on the face of the wall but cracked along the corners and round the window openings, where the coat is thinnest and takes the most movement. Water gets in at those cracks, freezes, and pushes the coat off from behind. On the older stone properties, the question is different: some were harled in lime originally and later covered in cement, which traps damp in the stone. That's worth raising with the firm if you have an older house. We also arrange gutter cleaning in Johnstone, which matters because a leaking gutter is a common cause of patchy roughcast.

Renfrew

Renfrew is flat, low and sits right on the Clyde, with the Cart along one side as well. There's very little shelter, so walls facing the river get driven rain blown hard against them. That's the weather roughcast exists to keep out, and it wears it down faster here than in a sheltered spot.

Housing ranges from the older streets near the town centre to council estates like Moorpark and Kirklandneuk, and newer flats and houses around Ferry Village. On the estates, the gable ends that face the open ground usually go first: long horizontal cracks, then hollow patches that sound drummy when you tap them. Damp on the inside of a gable wall after a windy wet spell is a strong hint. See also gutter cleaning in Renfrew.

Erskine

Erskine was built as a new town from about 1970, so its houses are much younger than Paisley's, and a lot of them were finished in roughcast or a dry dash when they went up. That's fifty-odd years of weather off the Clyde, and many of those original coats are now reaching the end of their life at about the same time.

Because so many Erskine houses were built quickly to similar designs, the problems tend to repeat street by street. You'll often see the same cracks under the same windows on house after house. Dry dash (pebbledash) is common here, and when it fails the stones start dropping off and leave bald patches. Once that's spreading, a repair is hard to match and a full re-coat of the wall is usually the better spend. If the fascias and gutters need attention too, see gutter cleaning in Erskine.

Linwood

Linwood grew fast in the 1960s around the Rootes car plant, and much of its housing dates from then, with newer homes added since 2008. It sits low and flat on ground that used to be moss and bog, near the Black Cart.

That low, damp setting keeps walls wet for longer between showers. Roughcast that never quite dries is slower to crack but quicker to go green and grow moss, especially on north-facing walls and anywhere under a dripping gutter. The usual job in Linwood is a mix: cleaning or painting the sound walls and re-roughcasting the ones where the coat has blown. It's also worth sorting the gutters first, so the new coat isn't soaked from day one. See gutter cleaning in Linwood.

Bishopton

Bishopton is two places now. There's the older village, with mostly mid-20th-century houses and some older cottages, and there's the big Dargavel development on the old Royal Ordnance Factory land, still being built out.

In the older village, the jobs are the familiar ones: roughcast from the 1950s to the 1970s that's cracked, patched in places and starting to sound hollow. On the newer Dargavel houses the finishes are mostly modern render or roughcast, and the questions are different. Small cracks in the first couple of years are common as a new house dries out, and if the house is still under warranty that's the builder's to look at first. Bishopton sits up above the Clyde and open to the weather coming up the river, so west-facing walls in both parts of the village do get a hammering.

Barrhead

Barrhead, over in East Renfrewshire, sits under the Fereneze Braes. Houses on the higher ground towards the braes take wind and rain straight off the open hills with not much in the way. Down in the older parts of town, near the Levern Water, walls stay damp longer.

The town has older stone housing from its industrial days alongside large post-war estates such as Auchenback, where roughcast is the standard finish. The exposed houses tend to crack and blow; the sheltered, damp ones go green and grow moss. On the older stone buildings, the same lime-or-cement question as Johnstone comes up. We cover Barrhead and Neilston (G78) for roughcasting and also arrange gutter cleaning in Barrhead.

The same job, wherever you are

Whatever the town, a full re-roughcast follows the same order: scaffold up, old coat hacked off, wall repaired, scratch coat, then the dash coat thrown on. Roughcast can't go on in frost or heavy rain, so winter work can stop and start. Most semis take a week or two. Our roughcasting cost guide covers what it typically costs and why prices vary.

If you'd prefer a smooth or modern finish, rendering is the alternative, and the harling, roughcast or pebbledash guide explains the differences. With scaffolding up anyway, it's a good time to get the gutters cleared and the roof looked over by a roofer as well.