Paint Removal in Cullompton

The Moore & Franks approach in Cullompton

Cullompton's Fore Street conservation core is about as heritage-sensitive as Devon gets — cob and lime render, listed frontages, the timber-framed Walronds, and St Andrew's church nearby. On fabric like that, abrasive paint removal would be a disaster, and masonry paint trapping Culm-valley damp is nearly as bad. Moore & Franks take unwanted paint, limewash and over-painting off with DOFF superheated steam at low pressure, gentle enough for listed cob and lime, with a test patch first and an honest word on what will and will not come back to bare. The original surface restored to breathe. Family-run, twenty-five years, £5m public liability.

The listed Fore Street conservation core is at the centre of Cullompton paint-removal work, and it is exactly the fabric that punishes the wrong method. Cob and lime render have to breathe, and in the damp Culm valley a coat of masonry paint over them traps moisture in walls that were never built to hold it. Soft, failing cob and blown render follow. Anything abrasive here would chew the surface up and leave a bigger repair than the paint. We lift the unwanted coating with low-pressure superheated steam, at the gentlest setting that clears it, so the historic wall can dry out and the original face returns.

Around the timber-framed Walronds and up toward St Andrew's there is genuine heritage fabric where over-painting on lime, cob and stone detailing is best taken carefully back to bare, or left for an appropriate breathable finish. Out on the modern estates at Knightswood and Colebrook the walls are later render, often over-painted more than once, and there the job is usually clearing an inherited colour or a tired old coating. Whatever the wall, we match the method to it and keep abrasive tools well away from the breathable stuff, where they do lasting damage.

Every Cullompton job begins with a test patch on a discreet area. With this much listed cob and lime in the town, proving the method lifts the coating cleanly and leaves the surface sound comes before any full elevation. It is essential on fabric this soft. It also keeps us honest: some historic coatings have bonded in for good and will not come fully back to bare, and we show you that on the test rather than promise the impossible. On a listed building we will flag where consent may be needed, and the visit, test and quote are free.

Our Cullompton customers are typically within 20 minutes of our Exeter base. We cover the wider EX15 postcode area and the surrounding villages (St Andrew's Church, Fore Street conservation area, The Walronds, Culm Valley, Knightswood estate, Colebrook).