Plastering and rendering in Ashley Heath
Artex ceilings made flat, cracked and sagging ceilings, skimming, dry lining and render across Ashley Heath and BH24. Free visit, free written quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
More than half the work we do in Ashley Heath is overhead rather than on the walls. Cracked and artexed ceilings, a sagging corner, a stain that turns out to be the loft rather than the roof. We look at it from underneath and from above before we quote, because on a bungalow the loft is the other side of the same ceiling.
The calls come in three shapes. The ceilings are textured and dated and the room cannot be lifted until they are flat. Something has cracked or dropped and it needs dealing with. Or a sunroom, a garage or an extension has been opened up into the house and the join has been left rough.
Whichever it is, we come out, sound the ceilings and walls, put our head in the loft while we are there, and give you a written itemised price. Ashley Heath is close enough to us that fitting a survey in is rarely the hard part.
The work
Sloping ceilings show from every seat in the room
Artex ceilings, made flat. The village filled out in the seventies and early eighties, which is exactly when swirled and stippled ceilings went into almost every new house. Where the texture is sound and not stood proud, the peaks come off, the surface is prepared and primed, and two passes of finish coat leave it flat. Where it is heavy or loose, overboarding and skimming the new plasterboard gives a better ceiling. Artex applied before the 2000s can contain asbestos, so nothing gets sanded.
Cracks along the board joints and popped nail heads are movement, and scrim and a skim deals with them. A ceiling that has come away from the joists comes down instead. On a bungalow, and over half the dwellings here are bungalows, that is usually about what is sitting on top of it: boards and boxes laid straight across the joists over a bedroom. The chalet bungalows want board fixed to the rafters with the right gap kept behind it, and the angles between the slope, the flat and the dwarf wall run straight. Get that angle wrong and it shows from every seat in the room.
Walls: skim, or take it off. A wall that answers solid under a knuckle gets prepared, given a coat of thinned PVA or a bonding primer, and two passes of finish coat off the trowel. A wall that drums has parted from the sand and cement float behind it and comes off back to a clean background, then browning where the block keys and bonding or hardwall where it will not. In the newer houses the walls are plasterboard on dot and dab, and there the hollow sound is simply the way it was built. Knock throughs and garage conversions are steady work here because the plots are big enough for it: new stud walls, dry lining on dabs against the old external wall, angle bead on every new corner and stop bead at each reveal.
Outside it is gable ends, dormer cheeks and porches, in sand and cement, pebbledash on the older houses, or a thin coat silicone or monocouche where a wall is being redone. Repairs go on as a scratch coat and a mesh reinforced basecoat, then primer and topcoat, with a bell cast bead at the base. Ashley Heath is a twentieth century village, so lime plaster on lath is the exception rather than the rule, and where we meet one it gets a breathable repair rather than a gypsum one.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The site visit costs nothing, and we survey every wall and ceiling in the room rather than the patch you rang about. The quote is itemised: protection, whatever comes off, boarding, backing coat, finish coat, beads, making good and disposal on separate lines. Everything inside is a repair: no planning permission and no building control. Outside is the one to check, because re-rendering a whole elevation counts as renovating a thermal element and building control expects the wall to reach Approved Document L. Ashley Heath has no conservation area and a single listed entry, so unless yours is that building the finish is your choice and listed building consent is the only route that would change it.
Cost
What decides the price
No rate per square metre, because the square metres are the easiest thing to measure and the least useful thing to know. What answers solid under a knuckle gets a skim, what drums comes off back to the background. A detached bungalow with a drive and a wide side gate, a chalet bungalow where the work is up a fixed stair into the roof room, and a garage conversion still on bare block are three different jobs before any plaster is mixed. Ask any quote how long the room is out of use while it dries.
If it has come down
A ceiling sagging, or plaster blown off a wall
Ring rather than use the form. A ceiling pulling away from the joists, or plaster coming off a wall in sheets, goes to the front of the queue, because the next piece follows within days. Do not push a sagging ceiling back up. Ashley Heath is a short run for us, so a ceiling on the move is usually same day or next.
Worth knowing
In a bungalow, the ceiling and the loft are one job
Ashley Heath is bungalow country, and that changes ceiling work more than anything else about the place. In a house, most ceilings have a heated room above them. In a bungalow every ceiling in the property is the top one, with nothing over it but the loft, the insulation and cold air.
So the problems arrive as ceiling problems and start somewhere else. A brown ring that is not a roof leak is usually warm damp air getting into the loft through a gap round a hatch or a downlighter and condensing on the cold side. A line of cracks running square across a bedroom ceiling is often boards and boxes stored straight over the joists.
The useful part is that it works in your favour too. Because everything is at one level, boarding and skimming a whole bungalow's ceilings is a far simpler job than the same area spread over two floors: no boards up a staircase, no working over a stairwell, and the loft is right there to check from above while the room is open.
If a ceiling is coming down anyway, that is the cheapest moment you will get to seal round the hatch and the downlighters and check the eaves have not been stuffed solid. Ask for it on the same quote and it is a line, not a second job.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Ashley Heath and BH24, out to Ringwood, St Leonards and West Moors, and Dorset Council is the planning and building control authority for this address. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
Ashley Heath questions we get asked
We are twelve kilometres inland. Is salt still a problem?
Not here. Ashley Heath sits 12.8km from the coast, far enough that salt is not what drives beads and fixings to rust the way it does on the seafront. What does the damage inland is driven rain on the south west facing elevation, soaking the surface repeatedly through the winter. So we specify for water and movement rather than for corrosion, and the exposed gable gets the attention.
Which wall of a bungalow fails first around here?
The south west facing one, and usually low down. With 52.2% of Ashley Heath built as bungalows, the eaves sit close to the ground and rain bounces off the path straight back onto the bottom metre of wall. That band stays wet longest, so the render blows there while the rest of the elevation still looks sound. We price that band and that elevation rather than wrapping the whole building.
What can I check on the render before you come?
On a bungalow you can reach nearly all of it, which helps. Tap along the wall with your knuckles and listen for the change from solid to drummy. Look at the bottom edge for a lifted lip, and at the corners of window and door openings for hairline cracks running diagonally. Note where a downpipe or an overflow has stained the surface. Tell me those spots and the visit is quicker.
Almost nothing here is listed. Can we change the finish?
There is a single listed entry across the area and no conservation area over Ashley Heath, so for most houses this is straightforward. Dorset Council treats a like for like repair as maintenance, and a change of external material or colour on an unlisted house outside a designated area normally falls within permitted development. Confirm your own address rather than the road, because one entry can sit anywhere in a settlement.
How long does scaffold stand on a bungalow re-render?
Less time than on a two storey house, because the lift is low and the towers go up in a morning. The sequence on one elevation is hack off, make good, base coat, mesh, then top coat, with drying time between each. Weather sets the pace more than the work does. Scaffold comes down once the top coat has cured properly, not on the day it goes on.
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Tell us the address and what the ceiling or wall is doing. We will come and look, get in the loft, and put an itemised price in writing.