Paint Removal in Crediton

The Moore & Franks approach in Crediton

Crediton has a look all its own — warm red-sandstone cottages along the High Street — and painting over that sandstone is one of the classic mistakes we get called to put right. It is a soft, breathable stone, and a sealing coat of masonry paint traps Creedy-valley damp against it, doing real harm. Moore & Franks remove unwanted paint, limewash and over-painting with DOFF superheated steam at low pressure, gentle enough for soft sandstone, with a test patch first and a straight word on what the wall will give back. The original red-sandstone face restored to breathe. Family-run, twenty-five years, £5m public liability.

The distinctive red-sandstone cottages along Crediton's High Street are the town's signature, and they are also where paint removal matters most. Sandstone is soft and breathable, and painting over it is a classic mistake — the masonry paint seals the surface, traps Creedy-valley damp against a wall that needs to shed it, and the stone suffers behind the coating. It is also exactly the surface that abrasive blasting would ruin, eroding the soft face along with the paint. We work these with low-pressure superheated steam, lifting the unwanted coating gently so the original red-sandstone face comes back and the wall can breathe again.

Around Bowden Hill and Park Road the stock turns to Victorian brick and rendered terraces, plenty of them over-painted at some point, and out toward Lords Meadow the post-war semis carry their own tired coatings. On these the job is usually clearing an inherited colour or a failing coat back to the original face. Wherever there is stone detailing or a sandstone plinth hiding under paint, we take it back to bare where the surface gives it up cleanly, and we keep the same gentle, low-pressure approach across the town — soft Devon stone does not forgive a heavy hand.

Every Crediton job begins with a test patch on a discreet area. Soft sandstone especially needs proving before committing, so we confirm the method lifts the coating cleanly and leaves the stone sound before working a whole elevation. It keeps us honest with you: most surfaces come back well, but the odd old coating has bonded in hard and will not go fully back to bare, and we show you that on the test rather than promise the impossible. The site visit, the test and the written quote are all free.

Our Crediton customers are typically within 20 minutes of our Exeter base. We cover the wider EX17 postcode area and the surrounding villages (Crediton Parish Church (Holy Cross), Lords Meadow Leisure Centre, Newcombes Meadow, Sandford, Newton St Cyres, Shobrooke).