Plastering in Bryanston
Skimming, dry lining repairs and render across Bryanston and DT11, checked by hand before anything is priced.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Bryanston was the estate village for Bryanston House, now the school, and its older cottages and lodges have solid stone or brick walls that want a breathable lime plaster. On a wall like that, a drumming sound usually means plaster that has lost its grip. Knowing which walls are lime, which are gypsum plaster and which are boarded changes the repair and the price, so it is the first thing we check.
In an older Bryanston cottage the plaster trouble tends to be one of three things. Plaster low on a wall has gone soft and salty where damp is working behind it. A patch has blown and sounds hollow when you tap it. Or a ceiling has cracked along the joists or started to sag between them.
We go through the house with you, tapping walls and scratching a hidden corner to find out what is lime, what is gypsum and what is lined. That takes a few minutes and it saves an argument later, because a lime wall and a gypsum or boarded wall need different work and a quote that has not told them apart is a guess. Then you get a written itemised price with the rooms, the method and the days in it.
The work
Filling a taped joint again does nothing
Dry lining repairs and full skims. Where a Bryanston house has been lined in plasterboard on dabs, the joints are taped and there is no wet plaster behind them. When a joint cracks, filling it again does nothing. We cut the tape out, re-tape the joint properly and either feather it in or skim the whole wall so there is one continuous surface and nothing to telegraph through the paint later.
Solid walls that are floated and skimmed. The estate cottages and lodges in Bryanston have a backing coat on solid masonry with a finish over it. Where it has blown, the loose material comes off and goes back in lime on an old solid wall, or in bonding or browning on a modern background, then the finish coat. We sound the whole wall by hand first, because taking off sound plaster is the fastest way to make a small job into a big one.
Ceilings: cracked board joints, ceilings papered too often, artex nobody wants, and ceilings damaged where a bathroom above has leaked. Overboard and skim where the existing ceiling is sound and firmly fixed, take it down and start again where it is not, and check the joists and any wiring while it is open.
Where an older Bryanston cottage has had gypsum patched over its lime, that patch is often what fails first, because the wall cannot dry through it. The gypsum comes off, the wall is left to breathe, and lime goes back in coats with drying time between them. The quote gives the planned dates, so you can see how long each room is out of use.
New work is splitting a room, lining a garage conversion, boarding a loft room out. Timber or metal stud, boarded and taped, insulation and vapour control where the wall is external, then angle bead and stop bead on every corner and reveal so the finish holds a straight line against the joinery.
Outside it is sand and cement that has crazed or come away around openings, pebbledash that is hollow behind, and rendered plinths taking splash off the ground. Patch repairs are cut back to something sound and made good in a matching mix. A full elevation is rebuilt as a primer, a mesh-reinforced basecoat and a silicone thin coat, K render or monocouche topcoat, with a bell cast at the bottom. For the outside walls, see rendering in Bryanston. Inside the conservation area what goes back matters as much as how it goes on.
Salty, crumbling plaster at skirting height is not a plastering fault, it is a symptom. We find out where the water is coming from first, and the replastering happens when the wall is dry rather than as a way of hiding it.
How it runs
Skimming, patching and replastering, room by room
Tell us which rooms and what the walls or ceilings are doing. Thomas comes and taps them over, checks for hollow areas and damp, and prices it himself. The quote lists protection, stripping any loose plaster, boarding or dry lining, the backing coat, the skim, new beads, and taking the waste away. One point of contact covers the whole job.
Inside, floors and stairs are sheeted, furniture is moved or covered, and doorways are masked so dust stays in the room we are working in. Plaster is mixed outside where there is room. On a Bryanston lane with nowhere to park, we unload and move the van, and the rubble goes out in bags. There is no skip left on the verge. Each room is left swept at the end of the day. Lath and plaster, or a wall that is wet behind, is something you will see in a photograph, with a price, before we change the plan.
Replastering inside a house needs no permission. Repairing outside render like for like is maintenance; a change of material or finish may not be, and the Planning Portal explains the difference. Where a conservation area might apply, a quick call to Dorset Council settles it. On a listed building, historic lime plaster needs listed building consent before it is touched. Taking a whole external wall back to the blockwork brings Approved Document L and building control in.
Cost
Skim or full replaster: what changes the cost
We do not price plastering per square metre. Two rooms the same size can be very different jobs once the old plaster has been tapped.
Sound or hollow. Where the old plaster is still bonded, a skim is enough. Where it rings hollow it comes off, and a backing coat of bonding or browning is floated on and left to dry before a second visit for the finish.
Lime or gypsum. An older solid wall with lime plaster should be patched in lime, so the wall can breathe. Gypsum over it traps moisture and blows. A newer dry lined house is plasterboard: a damaged board is cut out and replaced, the joints taped, then skimmed.
Ceilings. A sagging lath and plaster ceiling is either overboarded or brought down and reboarded. Bringing it down is dusty and adds a day.
Getting in and out. A cottage up a lane with nowhere to park means every bag of plaster is carried further in, and every bag of rubble further out.
From another plasterer, find out whether a backing coat is priced or only a skim, whether new beads are included, and who takes the waste.
If it has let go
Plaster or a ceiling that has come down
If a ceiling has dropped at one end or plaster is bulging after a leak, shut the door, keep people out and turn off the lights on that circuit if water has been near them. Then ring us rather than using the form.
Scheduled plastering runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, and if nobody answers when you call, we ring back as soon as we can. Our first job there is taking down anything loose and making the room safe. In a dry lined house, a leak shows first as a sagging board edge along a taped joint, and a board that has soaked wants cutting out, not drying.
One local thing
A hollow wall here can mean two things
On the solid walls of Bryanston's older cottages, a hollow note usually means lime that has come away, but a wall that has been dry lined is meant to sound hollow. Dry lining means plasterboard stuck to the blockwork on dabs of adhesive, with the joints taped and filled and sometimes a thin skim over the top.
There is a deliberate air gap behind the board, so the wall drums when you tap it. That is the wall working as designed, not plaster that has blown, and it is worth knowing before you take a quote from somebody who has knocked once and told you the whole house needs hacking off.
It does change how you fix to the wall and how the wall fails. Fixings first: a heavy mirror, a wall mounted television or a radiator needs a fixing that reaches the blockwork behind, because a plug in the board alone pulls out and takes a fist sized piece with it. Then there is how these walls fail.
They crack along the taped joints, at board edges near ceilings and reveals, and around sockets where the board is cut short. The repair is to cut out and re-tape rather than skim over a joint that is still moving, and where a house has cracked in several rooms a full skim over the boards is better value than chasing joints one at a time.
Who you are dealing with
Plastering across the river from Blandford Forum
We plaster in Bryanston, in Blandford Forum and Blandford St Mary across the river, and out through Durweston, Stourpaine and Spetisbury. Bryanston is a 17.3 mile drive from Boscombe, and Dorset Council is the council for building control.
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is the company, registered in England and Wales with company number 15471719. It is owned by Thomas Hannen, who comes to see the rooms and prices the plastering himself. A customer verified by Checkatrade marked us 10 out of 10, for a resin driveway, patio and decking job. There is no charge for the visit or for the written, itemised quote. Before you book a visit in Bryanston, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Bryanston?
Most repairs in Bryanston 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.
| Question | In Bryanston |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Bryanston. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Blandford St Mary and Bryanston Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Bryanston. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Dorset National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about plastering in Bryanston
Our cottage shares a wall. Will the neighbours be affected?
Your neighbours in Bryanston will hear the work, because a shared wall carries sound straight through and hacking off is the loudest part of the job. Where cottages are joined, we plan around the neighbours: noisy work in the morning, quieter work after. Give the neighbour a day's notice. If the party wall itself is coming back to brick we would rather they knew before we start.
Our cottage walls are old lime plaster. Can they just be skimmed?
Not in gypsum. A solid stone or brick wall finished in lime has to keep drying outwards, and a gypsum skim over it traps the moisture and lets go within a few winters. Loose lime is cut back and patched in lime, then finished in a lime skim, so the wall stays breathable.
Does the Blandford St Mary and Bryanston conservation area affect render?
It affects how it looks. Repairing the render you have, in the same material and finish, is maintenance and nobody needs telling. Swapping a lime or sand and cement face for a modern coloured system is a change of appearance and Dorset Council will want to see it. The wider Dorset landscape designation means anything visible from outside gets looked at properly. Ask before the material is ordered.
Bryanston School is listed. Does that affect the houses nearby?
Not unless your own house is on the list as well. The Portman Chapel and the Church of St Martin are among Bryanston's listed buildings, but listing attaches to that building and its curtilage, not to the street around it. Your house is caught instead by the conservation area rules on appearance. If your place is listed then internal plaster is covered too, and lime stops being optional.
Where does all the old plaster and rubble end up?
In the van, the same day wherever we can manage it. Hacked off plaster is heavy and dusty and it is not sitting on a Bryanston pavement overnight, so we bag it as we go and load out at the end of each day. New boards get stacked flat, never leant against a car. Waste removal is a line on the written quote instead of something that appears at the end.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering near Bryanston
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Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Hollow-sounding wall: blown plaster or dot and dabEverything we do in Blandford Forum Plastering, all areas Every area we cover
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Cracks that keep coming back?
Tell us the address and which rooms are doing it. The visit is free and so is the written itemised quote.