Plastering in Brockenhurst

Lath and lime ceilings. Nearly a quarter of Brockenhurst predates 1919, with the largest single cohort built before 1900, and in those houses the ceilings are laths with a haired lime backing coat squeezed through them. When the keys break the ceiling bellies down between the joists. Where enough key is left we repair and consolidate a section from above. Where it has gone, the ceiling comes down and goes back in lime on new lath, or in plasterboard with a breathable finish, depending on how much of the original you want to keep.

Solid walls, and what belongs on them. No cavity means the wall has always got rid of water through its own face, so the backing coat has to be breathable: a haired lime backing and a lime finish, never a cement render and never dry lining stuck on dabs, which leaves a cold void behind the board for moisture to sit in. That is the single most common thing we are called in to undo in the older parts of the village. The Lymington River runs through it and parts of the village sit in flood zone 3, so a ground floor wall here can have been wet from below as well as from the weather, and that decides the specification more than what the room is going to look like.

The Victorian and Edwardian houses still have their cornices, ceiling roses and picture rails, and they are worth keeping. We work a repair into a broken run rather than stripping a room back, and where a ceiling has to be replaced we take the cornice off in sections and put it back. Overboarding is quick and it is the wrong answer in a room with a good cornice, because it buries the top of it.

The later houses and the flats get ordinary work done properly: hardwall, bonding or browning as the backing coat depending on the block, plasterboard ceilings and stud partitions, dot and dab where the wall is true enough, tape and joint or a full skim, and angle bead and stop bead at every corner and reveal.

The exposed elevations face south west and take the weather off the open forest, and it is the openings and the edges that go first rather than the middle of a wall. On modern walls we build it up properly: primer, a mesh-reinforced basecoat, then a silicone thin coat, K render or monocouche topcoat that moves instead of cracking, with a bell cast at the bottom. On old solid walls it is lime, in a scratch coat and a topcoat, finished to match the rest of the street. Sound pebbledash we leave alone.

Patching, cracks and making good after a leak, after a rewire, or where an extension meets an old wall and the junction keeps opening. We would rather patch a wall than replaster one that is still doing its job.

No rate per square metre. What is behind the surface decides it: plaster still stuck takes a skim, plaster that sounds hollow comes off and brings a backing coat and a second visit. Most of what we price here is a cottage in the older part of the village or a flat in one of the later blocks, and lime work on a solid wall is slower than gypsum because each coat has to firm up before the next. Ask any quote whether a backing coat is included or only a skim, whether the beads are new, and who takes the waste.

We cover Brockenhurst and SO42, out through Boldre and Sway to Lymington, and up the road through Lyndhurst and the forest villages. 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.