Sprayed natural cork. Breathable, insulating, goes over pebbledash without stripping it, and it works on the old solid walls that modern render would wreck.
Cork render is a spray-applied coating made from natural cork, put on at around 6 to 8mm thick. It is new to most people in Devon, and hardly anyone down here is offering it, but for certain houses it is comfortably the best thing you can put on the outside.
The short version of why: it breathes, it insulates, and it goes straight over what is already there. That combination does not exist in any other render system.
Six things no conventional render does.
Water resistant from the outside, but genuinely vapour-open. That means it can go on the old solid-walled properties Devon is full of, cob, stone, solid brick, where a silicone or cement render would trap moisture and cause damp.
Cork is a natural thermal insulator. CorkSol report up to a 30% reduction in heat loss through the walls, and heating bills down by up to 15%. It acts like a thermal blanket wrapped round the house, without the bulk of insulation boards.
This is the big one. It sprays directly over existing pebbledash, render, brick, stone, even painted surfaces. No hacking off, no skips, no dust. If you have a 1970s pebbledashed house, this is the cheapest route to a modern finish.
Cork is flexible, so it moves with the building rather than fighting it. CorkSol are confident enough to offer a 25-year guarantee against cracking, which is not something you will see on any other render.
Unlike through-coloured renders, where a repair patch is near-impossible to colour match, cork can be patch repaired. That saves whole-wall re-rendering years down the line.
Cork absorbs up to 38dB. If the house is on a busy road, that is a noticeable difference inside, a benefit no other render offers at all.
Look at the housing stock round here. Cob cottages. Solid stone. Victorian solid brick. And streets and streets of 1970s and 80s pebbledash.
The old solid walls need to breathe. Put silicone or cement render on a cob wall and you seal the moisture in. It rots timbers, pushes plaster off the inside, and creates damp in a house that was dry for two hundred years. Traditionally, the only answer for those walls was lime, which is excellent but slow and expensive.
Cork render gives you a second option: breathable like lime, but insulating, weatherproof, sprayed on quickly, and available in a proper range of colours.
And the pebbledash. Half of Devon is pebbledashed, and everyone who owns one has looked at the cost of hacking it off and quietly given up. Cork sprays straight over it. No removal, no skips, no mess, and the house looks completely different in a matter of days.
Cork bonds to almost anything: brick, stone, blockwork, existing render, pebbledash, concrete, metal, timber, tile, including surfaces that have been painted with gloss or emulsion.
The one exception is silicone. Cork will not go over silicone-based renders, coatings or fillers. If your house already has silicone render on it, cork is not the answer, but honestly, if you have got sound silicone render on the house, you do not need anything doing to it anyway.
Zero VAT. The UK government has cork render at 0% VAT until 2027. On a full house that is a serious saving, and it will not last forever.
Fire rating. Euro-class B, which matters more than it used to given where building regulations have gone.
It is sustainable, genuinely. Cork is stripped from the bark of the cork oak and the bark grows back. No trees are felled. It is not a quarried material. Kevin McCloud featured it on Grand Designs and described it as tying a building into its setting, which is a fair way of putting it.
Colour range. Around 24 shades, from greys and neutrals through to some genuinely bold options. It also gives a uniform finish across a house where an extension does not match the original, which is a very common Devon problem.
Old cob, stone or solid brick? Very possibly the best option available to you, breathable and insulating, without the cost and curing time of a full lime render.
Pebbledashed and hate it? This is the cheapest way to be rid of the look of it without the cost and mess of removal.
Cold house, solid walls, no cavity to fill? Cork adds insulation where you currently have none, without losing room size internally or building out the walls.
Modern cavity-walled house in good order? Silicone render is probably still your best bet. It is a proven system and it is what those walls are designed for.
Not sure? Send us a photo of the house on WhatsApp. Cork is a genuinely different product and it is not right for everyone. If it does not suit what you have got, we would rather say so than sell it to you.
The ones we get asked most.
Cork render is a spray-applied external wall coating made from granulated natural cork, typically applied at 6 to 8mm thick. It is breathable, water-resistant, thermally and acoustically insulating, and flexible enough to resist cracking. Unlike conventional renders it can be sprayed directly over most existing surfaces, including pebbledash, without removing them first.
Yes. Cork render sprays directly over existing pebbledash with no need to hack it off first, which avoids the considerable cost, mess and waste disposal of removal. It also bonds to brick, stone, blockwork, existing render, concrete, metal, timber and painted surfaces.
Yes, and this is one of its main advantages. Cork render is genuinely vapour-open, so it allows solid cob, stone and brick walls to breathe. Silicone and cement renders trap moisture in these walls and cause damp and timber rot. Cork offers a breathable option that also adds insulation, which lime render does not.
Yes. Cork is a natural thermal insulator. CorkSol report up to a 30% reduction in heat loss through the walls and heating bill savings of up to 15%. It also provides acoustic insulation, absorbing up to 38dB, which is a meaningful difference for properties on busy roads.
CorkSol offer a 25-year manufacturer's guarantee against cracking, chipping, fading and peeling. Because cork is flexible it moves with the building rather than cracking under stress, and unlike through-coloured renders it can be patch repaired rather than requiring whole-wall re-rendering.
Silicone-based renders, coatings and fillers are the only materials unsuitable for cork render. It will not bond to them. Every other common surface, brick, stone, block, pebbledash, cement render, concrete, metal, timber, tile, and painted surfaces, is suitable.
The UK government has set VAT on cork render at 0% until 2027, as it is classed as an energy-saving material. On a full house this represents a significant saving compared with conventional rendering, which carries standard VAT.
Send a photo on WhatsApp. We'll tell you straight, even if the answer is that there's nothing wrong.