Plastering in Beacon Hill
Skimming, ceilings, replastering and external render across Beacon Hill and the rest of BH16. Free visit, itemised written quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most walls and ceilings we are asked to look at in Beacon Hill do not need taking back to the brick. A skim over sound plaster, or a fresh ceiling over an old textured one, is usually a day or two a room, and we would rather quote you for that than sell you a full replaster.
People ring us here for one of three reasons. A ceiling has been swirled or stippled since the house was built and you have finally run out of patience with it. A wall has started to sound hollow when you knock it, or the plaster has come away round a door frame.
Or you are opening up a garage, taking a wall out, or having a new window fitted, and the making good is the part nobody has priced. All three want looking at in person, because no photograph will tell you whether the backing coat is still stuck to the wall behind the paint. We are about eight miles away, the site visit costs nothing, and you get the price in writing.
The work
A bungalow's ceiling is its whole floor area
Artex and textured ceilings. A quarter of the houses here are bungalows, and a bungalow's ceiling area is its entire floor area, all of it sitting straight under the loft. A lot of those ceilings have been in a swirl or a stipple since the house went up in the seventies. Overboarding, taping and skimming is cleaner and flatter; scraping and skimming is only worth it where the coating is thin and the ceiling behind is sound. Textured coating put up before 2000 can contain asbestos, so it is not something to sand off yourself, and that alone is why we overboard far more often than we scrape.
Walls: skim, patch and replaster. Houses of this age are mostly a backing coat of browning or hardwall floated onto blockwork with a finish over the top. Where that finish is sound we prepare it and PVA the porous patches rather than strip it. A dull hollow note over one area means the backing has blown, and skimming over it only buys you a year. That comes off back to the block, takes a new backing coat, and is finished flush with what is either side. Integral garages are common in the detached houses here, and turning one into a room is among the commonest jobs we plaster: dry lining on insulated board, dot and dab where the blockwork is true and on stud where it is not, finished in tape and joint or a full skim, with an angle bead on every corner and a stop bead against each frame, and building control wanting to see the insulation before anything covers it.
Outside it is rendered gables, pebbledash panels and rendered porches. Sand and cement on this stock fails in the same places every time: a crack under a window, a hollow patch at the bell cast where the render stops, and a green stain where a downpipe has run down the face of it. Small areas are cut out and made good in a scratch coat and topcoat. A whole elevation is better recoated over a mesh reinforced basecoat with a primer and a silicone thin coat.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from the first visit to the last, one person to ring, and nobody sub-contracted in that you have never met. The quote is itemised rather than one figure on the back of a card: preparing and protecting the room, any board or backing coat, the beads, the finish coat, making good and disposal on separate lines. The old plaster leaves with us rather than sitting in bags on your drive. Plastering the inside of your own house is not development, so there is nothing to apply for. Converting a garage or forming a new room goes through building control, and we will tell you at the visit which side of that line you are on.
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. A sound wall that only wants a skim is a different job from one where the backing coat has blown and has to come off back to the masonry. A bungalow gable comes off a tower, a two storey detached with a conservatory across the back does not, and a flat above a shared entrance means boards and protection up somebody else's stairs first. Ask any quote how long it wants for drying before you can decorate.
If it has come down
A ceiling down, or plaster blown off the wall
Ring rather than use the form. A ceiling that has cracked and dropped goes to the front of the queue. We are about eight miles out, so this is normally same day or the next. On a bungalow the first place to look is the loft above it, because a ceiling that lets go here is more often a tank overflow or a roof leak than plaster giving up.
Worth knowing
Nothing in Beacon Hill is listed, and that decides more than you would think
There is no conservation area over Beacon Hill and there are no listed buildings in it. That reads like trivia until you are choosing a finish for the outside of your house. It means the choice is genuinely yours: you can take pebbledash off and put a smooth silicone render on, change the colour, or render a wall that has always been bare block, without a conservation officer's view to satisfy and without applying for listed building consent.
Re-rendering in a similar appearance is normally permitted development in any case, and the Planning Portal guidance on external walls sets out where that stops. Very few addresses on this patch have that freedom, so it is worth knowing you do.
The rule that does bite here is not a planning one. Re-render a whole elevation and building control treats it as renovating a thermal element, which means the wall is expected to be brought up to a better standard where that is technically and economically feasible. Approved Document L is the one that sets it.
In practice that is a question about whether the cavity is filled, and the render coming off is the one moment when checking is cheap. Have that conversation at the quote stage rather than once the scaffold is up, because it can change what you spec and it costs nothing to settle on paper.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Beacon Hill, Corfe Mullen, Lytchett Minster, Upton, Sturminster Marshall and the rest of BH16. 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
Beacon Hill questions we get asked
Does Green Belt affect replastering or a new outbuilding?
Not the plastering. Green Belt policy around Beacon Hill has nothing to say about repairing or replacing a finish on a building that already stands. It bites when you want an extension or a new outbuilding, where the question becomes whether the footprint grows. There is no conservation area here and no listed entry either, so for repair work Dorset Council has no extra hurdle to put in your way.
Why is the plaster soft and crumbly above the skirting?
Salts and moisture have got into the backing coat, and once that has happened the surface cannot be saved by filling. Most of Beacon Hill, 42.5%, dates from between 1945 and 1982, and that construction uses a sand and cement backing on block which carries salt readily. We cut it out to a metre above the affected line, find out where the water came in, deal with that, then rebuild the coats.
Do Beacon Hill houses have solid plaster or plasterboard?
Both, depending on the decade. Roughly 30.4% of the settlement was built between 1983 and 2008, and those houses tend to be dry lined with boards on adhesive dabs, so a hollow sound is the design rather than a defect. The older 11.0% that predates 1919 is solid, and there a hollow patch means the backing has let go. Fixings have to reach the blockwork behind the board.
How quickly can you get out to look?
Beacon Hill is 8.2 miles from the yard, so it is an easy visit rather than a trip we have to plan around. Thomas Hannen does the looking and the pricing himself, which means the person who quotes is the person who has seen the wall. The visit costs nothing and the written quote is itemised. VAT is added to it, as the firm is a limited company.
How long does a hallway, stairs and landing need?
Boarding and skimming a hall, stairs and landing is normally a three day run for two of us, plus drying time before any decorating. The stairwell is the slow part, because working over a flight means a proper platform rather than a hop up, and the ceiling above it is high. Access matters more than area on that job. We do not commit to a date until the platform is worked out.
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Plastering and rendering near Beacon Hill
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Tell us the room and what you have noticed. We will come and look, and put an itemised price in writing. No charge, and no obligation.