Render, Texture & Paint Coatings: More Important Than Ever

Ever since the modernisation of the building and construction industry, the render, texture & paint coatings category has been poorly understood. Poor decisions have been made resulting in many extremely expensive lessons for builders, developers and property owners. Render, texture and paint coatings are often referred to as the “icing-on-the-cake”. So what happens when that icing goes sour?

Driving through the suburbs of Sydney, it doesn’t take long before you realise how important the “icing-on-the-cake” really is — with many newly-built homes and apartments already showing major evidence of defective work, such as cracked and delaminated render and stained, blistered and peeling paint.

Cement render has always been considered a top-notch, high-end classic finish, yet in today’s market, it is being unfairly tainted as an unreliable and unpredictable option — mainly as a result of poor workmanship, inferior product performance and poor decision-making by those involved in the project.

The fact is that the responsibility lies with the decision-makers (whoever that may be) and their ability to make a confident and informed decision about render, texture & paint — and then, who they should engage to do the job. 

Many will deflect the important decision of preferred render system onto the applicator, unaware that the applicator likely has a completely different set of criteria to base their decision on. Herein lies the problem.

So why is something apparently so “simple” as render, texture and paint coatings, the source of such confusion amongst even the most experienced building and construction professionals?

Firstly, there is simply not enough accurate information available about render, texture and paint coatings, and a lot of the information that is available is quite misleading and deceptive. Unfortunately this then makes it difficult to make a responsible and reliable decision.

Marketing the glamorous, elegant finished-product through glossy advertising, rather than promoting the intrinsic, performance qualities of a system, will naturally influence the decision-maker into making a decision based on how they would expect their building to look upon completion, rather than the long-term sustainability and performance of that system.

Secondly, asking an applicator their opinion on the best render, texture & paint system will not necessarily give you an answer that satisfies your criteria, but rather that of the applicator. The truth is that an applicator’s criteria is concerned mainly with material cost, workability of material and convenience of supplier locations. None of these criteria add any value to the overall integrity of the system.

In fact leaving the decision solely to the applicator is likely to give you a finished result that is undesirable. The applicator will not be around when the system starts to fail, peel and cracks start to appear. The decision must come from the top down and it should be based on quality systems, performance and warranty details. This provides the best chance of a long-lasting and looking render, texture and paint job.

At Hume, we want to reset the bar for render, texture and paint systems. This shift of focus towards high-performance, reliable and compliant systems will inject more confidence into the building industry for architects, builders and most importantly the end-user. 

If you would like to find out more about achieving the best results in this category for your next building project with the support of a reputable product supplier, contact our Render, Texture and Paint Systems Sales Manager today at rtp@humebuildingproducts.com.au.