Paint Removal in Sidmouth

The Moore & Franks approach in Sidmouth

Sidmouth cares how it looks, and much of what makes it handsome is painted lime render and older stone that has been coated over the years. On the Regency esplanade villas and the seafront terraces, paint over lime traps salt-laden damp off Lyme Bay against a wall that was built to breathe. In the older centre there is stone and cob under the same problem. Moore & Franks remove unwanted paint, limewash and over-painting with DOFF superheated steam, gentle enough for heritage fabric, with a test patch first. The original surface restored, not blasted. Family-run, twenty-five years, £5m public liability.

The Regency villas and painted lime-render terraces along Sidmouth's esplanade are the heart of our paint-removal work here. These are solid, breathable walls, and the salt that blows in off Lyme Bay needs to move out through the fabric to keep them dry. Paint over that, and the moisture is held in. You get blistering, blown render and a damp, tired-looking frontage that another coat only hides for a season. We lift the unwanted coating with low-pressure superheated steam, clearing it without abrading the soft lime underneath, so the wall can dry and the original render face returns.

In the older centre there is stone and cob carrying the same story: walls painted over the decades that would be far healthier bare or under a breathable finish. Up the valley toward Woolbrook and Sidford the semis are later, but the shaded, damp Sid-valley air keeps their coatings tired too. Where stone detailing, plinths or features have been over-painted, we take them back to bare where the surface gives it up cleanly. It is a heritage-minded town, and restoring the original face rather than sealing over it is usually exactly what owners here are after.

Every Sidmouth job begins with a test patch on a discreet area. Salt in a coastal wall changes how coatings sit, so we prove the method lifts the paint and leaves the surface sound before we work a whole elevation. It lets us be straight with you: most render and stone comes back well, but some old coatings have bonded in for good and will not return fully to bare, and we show you that on the test rather than promise the impossible. The free site visit covers the assessment, the test and a written quote.

Our Sidmouth customers are typically within 25 minutes of our Exeter base. We cover the wider EX10 postcode area and the surrounding villages (The Esplanade, Sidford, Sidbury, Woolbrook, Peak Hill, Salcombe Hill, Connaught Gardens).