Painter and decorator in Portreath, where the salt sets the schedule

On a windy day the spray off the harbour and the beach carries well up the valley and onto the houses on both hills, and it does not need to be raining for a wall to get wet with it. Salt is the problem, not just the water. It draws moisture into render and holds it there, so a seaward wall in Portreath stays damp longer than the same wall inland. Then, as the wall dries, the salt crystallises just beneath the surface and pushes the paint off from behind. That is the white bloom and the flaking on so many houses along here, and it is why a coating that was fine for years up in Illogan can look tired after a couple of winters on the seafront.

Timber suffers in its own way. Salt-laden air keeps sills, frames and fascias slightly damp, the end grain drinks it, and paint that has lost its edge seal lets water straight into the wood. Metal goes fastest of all. Gates, railings and handrails rust through an ordinary paint system in a season or two if the steel was not taken back to bright and primed with something made for it.

So preparation on the coast is more than a rinse. Render is washed down with clean water, more than once where the salt is heavy, and left to dry. Chalky paint is bound, blown render cut out and made good, and the coating chosen so the wall can still let moisture out. Soft timber is cut away, bare wood and end grain primed, and the coats built back up so every joint is sealed. Steel is wire-brushed back, rust-primed and finished with a coating that suits a marine setting rather than a garden one. It is slower than painting inland, and it is why the finish lasts.

The exterior season in Portreath is narrower than in Redruth or Camborne. A sea fog can sit on the village on a morning that is bright a mile inland, an onshore breeze puts spray on the walls when the forecast says dry, and the wind itself can make tower work on an exposed gable unsafe. Late spring to early autumn is still the right time, but within it we work the sheltered elevations on marginal days and keep the seaward walls for the settled ones.

That means booking exterior work early in the year. The good weeks fill quickly along the coast, and a job that needs three or four dry days together is easier to fit in May than in a wet August. If a front comes through halfway, we stop, let the wall dry and come back, rather than trapping moisture under a coat that will lift by winter.

A good share of the houses here are holiday lets or second homes, and their owners are often not in Cornwall. For those the outside is best done in the off season while the house is empty, between the autumn and the Easter bookings, as long as a dry spell can be found. We agree access, water and power in advance and send photographs as each elevation is finished.

Inside, the calendar decides what is possible. A changeover day is enough for a scuffed hallway, a marked bedroom wall or a bathroom ceiling gone spotty with steam, done and dry before the next guests arrive. A full repaint, or hanging paper in the living room, needs a proper gap between bookings, and we say so rather than leaving the smell of wet paint for the guests. For owners with several lets, or an agent looking after a handful, we can work through them in a block over the quiet months.

The pubs, cafes and shops by the harbour run to the same rhythm, with a short quiet season to get walls, ceilings and outside woodwork done before the trade returns.

Along the valley floor and the road up towards Illogan are the old terraced cottages: solid stone walls under render, small rooms, narrow frontages and little room to park a van or stand a ladder, especially in summer when the beach traffic arrives. On the hills either side are later houses, bungalows and a few larger places built to face the sea, with big windows, rendered or dashed walls and, on the exposed side, full weather from the first floor up.

Inside the cottages the sea still shows: salts through the plaster on a seaward wall and paint bubbling low down where the wall stays damp. We use finishes the old walls can breathe through and deal with the cause before the colour goes on.

Every job is looked at before a figure is put on it. Here that means checking each elevation by hand, finding where a tower can stand on a sloping plot, noting the railings and sills, and being honest about which walls need scaffold. The quote sets out the preparation allowed for and the number of coats. Seafront timber often turns out softer than it looked, and when it does we stop and agree the repair with you rather than paint over it.