Plastering in Bransgore
Ceilings, walls and render across Bransgore and BH23, sounded before they are priced and itemised in writing.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
If the plaster drums when you tap it, a skim will not fix it. A hollow wall or ceiling has let go of the background behind it, and fresh finish over the top comes away with the old. We come out to Bransgore, sound it first and price only what has to come off.
Three calls come out of Bransgore more than any other. A ceiling has opened up in a straight line and nobody wants to paper over it again. A room has been stripped for decorating and the wall underneath is a patchwork of old repairs. Or the render on a gable has crazed and started holding water instead of shedding it.
None of those get better on their own. We come out, sound the walls and ceilings by hand and separate what is tired from what has let go, then put a written price in your hands saying which surfaces are being skimmed, which are coming off, and how long the room is out of use.
The work
We knuckle the whole wall before we quote it
Ceilings. Most of Bransgore went up between the late sixties and the early eighties, and those ceilings are plasterboard fixed to the joists with a scrimmed or taped joint, nearly always with a textured coating over the top. The call is usually a crack along a board joint, a ceiling papered twice and bubbling, or artex that has to go before a decorator will touch the room. Overboard and skim is the usual answer, a day a room in most of these houses.
We knuckle the whole wall before we quote it. The estate houses are a block inner leaf floated in browning or bonding with a gypsum finish coat over it. Where a fireplace has been opened up, a chimney breast taken out, a rewire chased in or a bathroom above has leaked, the finish around it has normally blown, and a hollow patch skimmed over is a repair that fails twice. A seventies detached house that has just changed hands is our commonest full job: every room skimmed while it is empty and run in an order that lets the drying keep up with your dates.
Detached houses are over forty per cent of the village and they come with the loft space and the garages people convert. New stud partitions boarded and taped, plasterboard dot and dab onto blockwork where a wall is straight enough for it, and reveals and corners squared up with angle bead and stop bead so the joinery has something true to sit against.
Outside it is gable elevations, garages, outbuildings and the older cottages at the edges of the village: sand and cement that has crazed, pebbledash that is hollow behind and coming off in plates, and cracking that opens at the corners of the windows first. The exposed elevation faces south west, so where a wall is taking weather we go mesh reinforced basecoat and a silicone thin coat topcoat, which moves rather than cracks, with a bell cast at the bottom so water is thrown clear of the brickwork. Not all of Bransgore is estate housing: close to a fifth of it predates 1919, and the cottages on the lanes are solid wall with lime plaster on lath, needing a breathable backing rather than a gypsum one. A hard modern plaster on a wall that has always dried through its surface traps the water and pushes the next coat off.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The site visit is free and so is the written quote, itemised rather than one figure: prep and protection, hacking off, the backing coat, beads, the finish coats, making good and the waste on separate lines. Bransgore has no conservation area of its own, so on most houses the outside finish is your choice and ordinary repairs need no permission. Changing the material or the look of a render is where that line sits, and Planning Portal sets out where that line falls. On one of the thirteen listed entries in the parish, stripping historic plaster needs listed building consent first. Taking a whole elevation back to brick counts as renovating a thermal element, which pulls in Approved Document L.
Cost
What decides the price
No rate per square metre: the square metres are the easiest thing to measure and the least useful thing to know. Plaster that is still stuck gets a skim. Plaster that sounds hollow has to come off, and then a backing coat first and a second visit for the finish, which moves the cost more than anything else. Most of what we price here is a seventies detached house, a bungalow on one of the estate roads, or an older cottage out on the lanes. Ask any quote whether a backing coat is included or only a skim, and who takes the waste.
If it has let go
Plaster coming down today
Ring rather than use the form. A ceiling that has cracked and dropped at one end, or plaster bulging off a wall after a leak, goes to the front of the queue. A lot of the ceilings in this village are plasterboard from the seventies with a textured coating on them, and those let go along a joint rather than sagging politely first, so do not stand underneath one to have a look.
One local thing
Every other ceiling here has artex on it
Half of Bransgore was built in the stretch when a textured coating went onto almost every ceiling as standard, so that is what we find above the light fitting here house after house. Any textured coating put up before 2000 can contain asbestos, and that sets one firm rule: nobody sands it, dry scrapes it or wire brushes it. Not you, not a decorator, not us. If it is being disturbed it gets sampled first, and testing is cheap next to getting it wrong.
There are two clean routes and we will tell you which one your ceiling wants. Overboarding is the one we use most: fresh plasterboard screwed through the old surface into the joists, joints taped, then skimmed. Nothing is disturbed and you get a flat ceiling with a proper finish coat on it.
It does drop the ceiling by the thickness of a board, so downlighters and coving have to be thought about first. The other route is sealing the coating and skimming straight over it, which is quicker and only works where it is well stuck and the peaks are not proud. Which one you are in is a five minute check at the survey.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Bransgore and the BH23 postcode, out through Thorney Hill and Sopley and across to Burley, Christchurch and Highcliffe. 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
Bransgore questions we get asked
Why would two Bransgore houses need different plastering methods?
Because the village is split between two very different eras. Some 18.2% of the stock predates 1919, meaning solid walls, lath ceilings and lime, while 31.6% went up in the 1970s and early 1980s on block with a sand and cement backing. The finish on top can look identical in both. What sits behind it decides whether we use a breathable backing or a modern browning, and getting that wrong causes a repeat visit.
Is dry lining common in Bransgore, or solid plaster?
Solid, more often than not. Only 14.2% of Bransgore was built between 1983 and 2008, so dabbed plasterboard is much less common here than a proper backing coat. That changes how a hollow sound should be read. On a solid backing, drumminess means the plaster has parted company with the brick and that area has to come off, rather than being the normal air gap behind a sheet of board.
Our cottage is old but not listed. Do we need consent?
For external work, generally not. Bransgore has thirteen listed entries and no conservation area of its own, so an unlisted house here is treated as ordinary by New Forest District Council and a change of render or colour normally sits within permitted development. Age on its own does not create a control. It does change the specification though, because an old solid wall still has to breathe whatever the planners say.
Which elevation goes first on a detached house here?
The south west face, because there is nothing beside it to break the weather. Detached houses are 41.3% of Bransgore, and a detached wall gets no shelter from a neighbour the way a semi or a terrace does, so all four elevations weather at their own rate. The exposed one loses its edges and reveals first. That is the face worth spending on while the others can wait.
What happens to the old lime plaster you remove?
It comes off in sheets and it is filthy, so containment matters more than speed. Old lath and lime carries generations of soot and horsehair, and it goes straight into bags at the wall rather than being swept up later. Floors are sheeted, doorways are taped and the bags go out to the van the same day. On the village's older properties we allow proper time for that part.
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Want a straight answer on that wall?
Tell us the address and what it is doing. We come out, sound it, and put a written price in your hands.