Paint Stripping in Honiton

The Moore & Franks approach in Honiton

Honiton's High Street is lined with Georgian rendered townhouses and old lace-merchant frontages, with cob-and-thatch survivors and Victorian terraces off New Street and Silver Street behind. Sat low in the Otter valley under heavy tree cover, the town stays damp, and that damp works up behind painted render and joinery until the coating blisters and peels. Once paint has failed it needs stripping back before it's redone. Moore & Franks lift old and blown paint with DOFF superheated steam — hot, low pressure, kind to soft render, lime and old timber. Family-run, twenty-five years at it, insured to £5m, an easy run east from our Topsham base.

Honiton's High Street is a run of Georgian rendered townhouses and old lace-merchant frontages, and paint on those handsome elevations is what a lot of our work here involves. Sat low in the Otter valley under heavy tree cover, the town holds damp, and that moisture works up behind painted render until the coating blisters and peels. Painting over it just seals the damp in. DOFF superheated steam softens and lifts the failed paint at low pressure, back to a sound render surface, without harming the soft period fabric underneath — the gentle prep these older frontages need before a repaint.

Off the High Street the stock mixes cob-and-thatch survivors with Victorian terraces on New Street and Silver Street, and painted joinery and render feature on both. On cob and lime the rule is the same as anywhere — breathable, gentle, never sealed — and steam suits it. The modern brick and rendered semis out at Heathpark and Hayne Lane are a plainer job: masonry paint flaking on damp elevations, sometimes a stubborn plastic coating that needs a poultice to soften before the steam takes it. We match the method to the wall rather than treating them all the same.

The heavy tree cover round Honiton and out to Gittisham and Combe Raleigh keeps walls damp and paint failing, but not every tired wall needs stripping to bare. If the coating is broadly sound and only patch-failing, a full strip is overkill and we will say so, and quote the repair instead. Where paint really has blown — the usual story on a shaded, tree-hung elevation — taking it back to sound first is what stops the new coat going the same way. The site visit and written quote are free, with no obligation.

Our Honiton customers are typically within 25 minutes of our Exeter base. We cover the wider EX14 postcode area and the surrounding villages (Honiton High Street, St Michael's Church, Heathpark, Dumpdon Hill, Gittisham, Combe Raleigh, River Otter).