Plastering in Ashley

Re-skimming tired walls. The typical house here went up in the fifties or sixties, and half the village is that vintage: cavity walls with a block inner leaf, floated in sand and cement and finished on top.

That backing is hard and usually still perfectly stuck, so the fault is at the surface rather than behind it. Papered, painted and papered again over sixty years, it goes rough and patchy. That is a prepare, prime and two coats of finish job, a room at a time, and the wall ends up flat enough to paint without lining paper.

When a sand and cement float does fail it goes in one area rather than all over: a band along the base of a wall, or around a window where water has found its way in. That patch is hacked off back to the block, the cause is dealt with first, and the wall is rebuilt in bonding or hardwall to the same line as the sound work either side, then skimmed. Patching a blown area without dealing with what made it blow just books you a second visit.

Bungalow ceilings, and the artex on them. Bungalows are over forty per cent of the housing here, so most ceilings here sit straight under the loft. They crack where the boards meet, sag where somebody has been storing boxes across the joists, and a great many still carry swirled or stippled artex. Sound artex gets prepared and skimmed flat. Loose or very heavy artex is overboarded and the new board skimmed instead. The newer end of Ashley and nearly every extension since is plasterboard on dot and dab or on a stud: moisture resistant board behind a shower, a full skim where the room is going to be painted, angle bead on the corners and stop bead at the reveals.

Outside, the exposed elevation faces south west and the coast is under four kilometres away, so render here takes driven rain. Pebbledash on the older houses, plain sand and cement on most of the postwar ones. A repair is a scratch coat and a mesh reinforced basecoat, then primer and topcoat, with a bell cast bead at the bottom so water leaves the wall clear of the damp proof course. Cracks get cut out and reinforced, not filled, because a filled crack opens again in the first hard winter. A handful of houses here predate the rest by a long way, and those are solid wall, lime on lath, and want a breathable repair rather than a gypsum one. For the outside walls, see rendering in Ashley.

We do not quote plastering at a flat rate per square metre. The size of the room is the least useful thing to know. Tap test. Plaster that has come away from the wall sounds dull and hollow when tapped. That part comes off and is rebuilt with a backing coat, while plaster that is sound only needs a skim. The ratio between the two decides the job.

Textured ceilings. Plenty of sixties ceilings carry a textured coating. It is tested for asbestos first, then either skimmed or overboarded with plasterboard, which changes the time and the material.

Where it is. In a bungalow there is no spare floor to move things to, so rooms are done one at a time around you. A first floor flat means carrying everything up a shared stair. A semi with a drive gives room to mix outside and keeps the dust out of the house.

Height. Ceilings take longer than walls, because every coat goes on overhead, and a stairwell needs a platform set up under the work at height rules.

Ask any quote what the backing coat is, whether textured ceilings are tested first, and how long each room will be out of use while it dries.

Ashley lies 8.9 miles east of our Boscombe base, and for plastering we also cover New Milton, Bashley, Barton on Sea and Everton across BH25. New Forest District Council handles planning and building control.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales under company number 15471719, belongs to Thomas Hannen, and he taps the walls and prices the plastering himself. Checkatrade carries a verified customer's 10 out of 10 for us. The visit and the written quote, fully itemised, cost you nothing. Before you book a visit in Ashley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Ashley need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.