What it costs to restore and repaint a stucco front, and what drives the number

Who this is for. Owners of stucco-fronted houses who have had a quote and want to know whether it is reasonable, and anyone about to ask for one. Every figure here is a published range from a named source, dated, with the link at the foot. None is our price. Our own quotation is fixed to a specification, and the specification is where the number comes from.

1. How much of the render is sound. Paint over blown or hollow render fails early, so the repairs come first and they are the hardest part to price from the pavement. A survey counts what can be seen; the scaffold confirms it.
2. The mouldings. Cornices, window surrounds, quoins and string courses are what make a stucco front a stucco front. Running a lost section in situ is skilled work, and no published guide prices it, which tells you something.
3. Access. On a terrace, the scaffold is often the largest single line, and in Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea it comes with a pavement licence fee.
4. The paint system. A conventional masonry paint and a mineral silicate system are different materials with different lives. The choice is a specification decision, not a colour decision.
5. The windows. If the sashes are being overhauled and redecorated from the same scaffold, the job is bigger and the scaffold is used twice.

All figures are 2026 unless stated, and all are ranges from the guides named at the foot. London labour runs 15 to 30 per cent above the national figures in those guides.

Render and stucco repair

• A hairline crack under a metre: £80 to £180. A small patch of one to two square metres: £180 to £400. Blown render cut out and reinstated over five to ten square metres, with a tower: £600 to £1,400. A renderer's day in London: £350 to £500. (Squote, June 2026.)
• A small patch repair by a checked renderer: £150 to £320. (Checkatrade, June 2026.)
• Lime render £60 to £100 per square metre against cement render at £30 to £50. (MyJobQuote, July 2026.) On a period building the lime figure is the relevant one, for the reason below.
• Re-running external mouldings: no credible published rate. The nearest is interior plaster cornice at £20 to £50 per linear metre supplied and fitted (MyBuilder, August 2026), which is not the same job. Expect an itemised line on any serious quotation.

Painting the masonry

• £20 to £40 per square metre nationally, with London at the top of that and beyond it where preparation is heavy. (Checkatrade and facadecolorizer, 2026.)
• By property: a Victorian mid-terrace full repaint £1,400 to £2,800; an end-terrace £2,000 to £3,500; a Georgian townhouse £3,500 to £8,000. (facadecolorizer, 2026.) Those figures are for painting a sound front, before repairs and before scaffold.
• With heavy preparation and stabilising, £35 to £60 per square metre. (BookaBuilderUK, 2026.)

Scaffold and the licence

• A front elevation for painting: £500 to £850. (MyJobQuote, 2026.) London weekly rates for an extended project: £800 to £3,000 a week. (Archis Scaffolding, 2026.) Per square metre per week in London: £15 to £25. (facadecolorizer, 2026.)
• Pavement licence, Kensington and Chelsea: £683 per application covering a minimum of one day and a maximum of three months, plus a £66 deposit administration charge (from 1 April 2025). Hammersmith and Fulham: £420 a month for a commercial single frontage or a residential site up to 15 metres, £960 a month over 15 metres, plus a minimum £750 deposit against damage to the highway, minimum licence period one month. Westminster licenses scaffolding as a temporary structure and does publish a fee, on the temporary structure licence page rather than on the scaffolding page. It turns on whether the road is major or minor and whether the structure is over 50 square metres, running from £648 for up to two months on a minor road under 50 square metres to £6,371 for the same period on a major road over 50 square metres. The council publishes its road category list on the same page, and the major or minor split doubles the fee.

Paint systems

• A sol-silicate mineral paint such as Keim Soldalit costs about £8.60 per square metre in material for two coats, at the published price of the 5kg pack. (Promain, 2026.) The 18kg pack works out cheaper per square metre, so treat £8.60 as the high end of the material cost rather than the figure for a whole front. The manufacturer's own maintenance table gives two coats of a sol-silicate 25 to 35 years in a moderate climate, against 20 to 30 for a pure potassium silicate and 5 to 10 for limewash. The distinction matters on a London front: a pure silicate such as Keim Purkristalat needs a mineral substrate, and most stucco here carries decades of masonry paint, so the sol-silicate is the one that will take. A conventional masonry paint is usually specified for five to ten years.
• Why it matters on stucco: Historic England advises that traditional lime render and stucco require breathable paint systems that protect the masonry without trapping moisture within the wall. A standard film-forming paint on lime stucco traps moisture behind the coating, accelerating substrate failure and leading to costly repairs.

Take a three-storey stucco mid-terrace front with two blown patches, a cracked window surround and sashes that need an overhaul. From the guides above: painting the front £1,400 to £2,800, and repairs £1,000 to £2,500 depending on the mouldings. Scaffold £800 to £3,000 with the licence on top. A mineral system adds material cost against a longer life. The published total lands somewhere between £4,000 and £9,000 before the windows. The guides under-price period work, because they assume a sound front and a conventional paint.

Our indicative band for restoring and decorating a period house or flat front typically ranges from £12,000 to £30,000. We quote scaffolding separately based on dedicated access quotations, keeping access costs transparent. Larger stucco townhouses and mansion blocks operate on a different scale where scope and access dictate the total: for example, a comprehensive external restoration of a five-storey Grade II listed terrace in Maida Vale (restoring front and rear elevations, running cornice mouldings by hand, repairing parapets, porticos, balconies, overhaul of sash windows and associated roof works) represented approximately £75,000 including full scaffolding.

• Repairs quantified and itemised rather than bundled as an ambiguous allowance
• Scaffold as its own line from a scaffolder's quotation, with the licence fee from the borough's published schedule
• The paint system named for each substrate: masonry, timber, metal
• Anything that cannot be seen from the ground priced as a named provisional sum, confirmed from the scaffold
• A fixed price for the rest, and a programme

That is how we quote, and it is on our exterior and period redecoration page. If your quotation has a single line for the front, ask for it to be broken down before you compare it with anyone else's.