Paint Stripping in Dawlish

The Moore & Franks approach in Dawlish

Right on the beach, Dawlish gives paint about the hardest life on this coast. Salt spray off the Warren and the wooded damp rolling down the Holcombe slopes work at the painted Regency and Victorian terraces along The Strand and Brunswick Place until the coating blisters, cracks and lifts. When paint has failed like that, patching over it just traps the problem — it needs taking back to a sound surface first. Moore & Franks strip old and blown paint with DOFF superheated steam, hot and low-pressure, so soft render and period joinery come through undamaged. Family-run, twenty-five years, insured to £5m, a straightforward 25 minutes from Topsham.

The painted Regency and Victorian terraces along The Strand and Brunswick Place take salt spray straight off the beach and the Warren, and it tells on the paintwork fast. Coatings on the seaward elevations blister, crack and peel where the salt holds moisture against the render long after the rain has stopped. Stripping paint that has failed like that off soft, sea-worn render needs a gentle hand — DOFF superheated steam lifts it at low pressure, back to a sound surface, without driving more salt water in behind the coating the way a pressure wash would and setting up the next failure.

Behind the front, the steep wooded slopes around Holcombe and Barton Hill throw shade and drop leaf litter for much of the year, and walls up there never get a proper dry spell. Paint on the render and on window and door joinery blisters and flakes in that constant damp, north-facing and slow to dry. Layered old gloss on the timber comes off cleanly with steam, without the scorch of a heat gun; blown masonry paint on the render lifts the same way, though a modern plastic coating may need softening with a poultice first before it will shift.

Out toward Secmaton and Sandy Lane the houses are newer, the paint is modern masonry finish, and it tends to patch-fail rather than blow wholesale — which is where we will tell you a full strip isn't worth it. If a coating is broadly sound, we will point you at a repair and repaint rather than take the lot off. On the exposed seafront, though, once paint has failed it has to come off before anything new will hold. The free visit and written quote are where we settle which job the wall actually needs.

Our Dawlish customers are typically within 25 minutes of our Exeter base. We cover the wider EX7 postcode area and the surrounding villages (Dawlish Warren, Dawlish Water (the Black Swans), Cockwood, Holcombe, Barton Hill, The Strand).