Plastering in Cadnam and Bartley
Skimming, ceilings, lath and lime repairs, dry lining and external render across Cadnam, Bartley and the lanes around them, priced in writing after a free visit.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Most walls in Cadnam and Bartley do not need replastering. If the old plaster is still stuck fast to the brick behind it, a skim over the top gives you a flat, paintable surface for a fraction of what taking it all off costs. Knock the wall with a knuckle: a dull solid note means a skim will do, a hollow one means it has blown. We tell you which you have before we price it, not after.
Houses in Cadnam and Bartley need a plasterer for tired textured ceilings, walls softened by leaks and cracked render facing the lane. A ceiling that has carried the same textured finish since the house was built and has started to crack along the board joints. A wall gone soft and powdery after a leak upstairs, where the plaster comes away on your hand. And a rendered elevation facing the lane that has cracked, gone green and started holding water in it. Each is plastering work, inside or out, and none of them is safely judged from a photograph sent over the phone.
Cadnam and Bartley is 17.5 miles from our base in Boscombe, so this is planned work, not a van passing the end of the drive; ring and we will book a time. The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote, and if the honest answer is a morning of patching and not a room full of new plaster, that is what it will say.
The work
Wide ceilings with no floor above to work from
Ceilings, and a lot of single storey ones. There are plenty of bungalows along these lanes, and in those the ceilings are wide, open and unbroken with no floor above to work from.
Textured coatings on them are normal for the age of the stock: where the pattern is shallow and stuck fast we skim straight over it, and where it is heavy, or somebody has patched round a light fitting, overboarding with fresh plasterboard and taping the joints gives a better ceiling for not much more. Anything textured that went on before 2000 can contain a little asbestos, so it is sampled rather than sanded, and boarding over leaves it undisturbed.
The older cottages: lath and lime. Scattered among the newer houses are brick and rendered cottages with solid walls, no cavity, and a lath ceiling behind the paper. Those walls have to stay breathable. A gypsum skim over one still carrying moisture will blow again inside a winter or two, so the repair is lime plaster on riven lath, haired in the backing coats and left to dry properly before anybody decorates.
Elsewhere it is ordinary work: a skim over a sound wall, board on dabs where there is blockwork to fix to and on stud where there is not, tape and joint or a full skim, and bead on every external corner and window reveal. Pebbledash and roughcast of this era was nearly all sand and cement, which goes rigid and cracks; local damage is cut out and patched, and beyond that it comes off and goes back as a thin coat silicone system with a bell cast at the base.
How it runs
Plastering a room: the visit, the quote and the clean-up
Thomas comes out and taps every wall and ceiling on your list to find the hollow patches, and works out what the background is behind each. In a late sixties or seventies house here that usually means plasterboard ceilings, often with a textured finish, and brick or block walls in gypsum.
In an older Bartley cottage it can be lime plaster on solid brick or on laths, which should be repaired in lime. A gypsum skim on it will not last. The written quote gives a line each to stripping, preparing each background, beads, the backing coat and the finish coat, making good, and taking the waste away.
Older textured ceilings can contain asbestos, so if yours might, a sample is tested before anyone sands or scrapes it. The plastering comes under that one quote. Carpets and furniture go under dust sheets, doors are sealed off, and bagged waste goes out to the van every day. If a wall comes off and the brick behind is damp, we take a picture, price it, and wait for your say-so.
Nothing inside a house needs planning permission. Outside is different: planning sits with the National Park Authority, Bartley lies in a conservation area, and on a listed house listed building consent reaches inside as well as out, so we check the address before anything is ordered.
Cost
Skim, patch or re-plaster: what decides the price
Plastering in Cadnam and Bartley has no square metre rate. What is behind the finish decides the price. Sound or hollow. Plaster that rings solid when tapped will take a skim. A hollow wall comes off back to brick or block, which means a backing coat, then a finish coat, and more drying time.
Ceilings of this era. Many sixties and seventies ceilings in Cadnam and Bartley are plasterboard with a textured coating. Skimming over it is often the sensible route, but a sagging board has to come down first, and testing the coating for asbestos is its own line.
Lime on older walls. A cottage wall in lime plaster needs lime, applied in thinner coats with longer between them. It is slower than gypsum, and it lets the solid wall breathe instead of trapping damp.
Access and outside work. Most houses in Cadnam and Bartley stand in their own plot with a gate wide enough for the van, which helps; a cottage hard against the road does not. Outside, render brings a platform into the price, and the HSE guidance on work at height is why that is a separate line. Re-rendering a full elevation counts as renovating a thermal element, so Approved Document L and building control come in, where patching does not.
Ask a competing plasterer whether it is a skim or a full re-plaster, which backing coat, and whether the walls get gypsum or lime.
If it has started to come down
A ceiling bowing or plaster falling away
A ceiling that has started to sag, especially under a bathroom or after a leak from the loft, means clear the room below and keep everyone out. Do not sleep under it. If water is involved, turn it off at the stopcock. Then ring us.
The form is for jobs that can wait. Lath and plaster ceilings in the older cottages can let go in one piece once the nibs behind have broken. We prop or take down whatever is unsafe on that visit and clear the debris, then price the repair once we know what caused it. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For a ceiling on the move, phone, and if the line is busy you will hear back from us as soon as we can manage.
Worth knowing
Your planning application does not go to the council
For outside work this is the one local fact that changes what you should do. Cadnam and Bartley sit inside the New Forest National Park, and the National Park Authority, not a district council, decides planning here. That matters for render. Renewing an external finish like for like is maintenance and needs nothing. For the outside walls, see rendering in Cadnam and Bartley.
Changing it is different, and a change of colour or texture counts, because the appearance of a building in a designated landscape is what the Authority looks at. Swapping a grey pebbledash for a bright silicone topcoat is worth checking before the scaffold goes up.
In Cadnam and Bartley, check the address on the Authority interactive property map, which tells you whether the property is listed as well as whether it sits in the Park. Then have the finish and the colour written into the quote by name, not just described as render, so there is no argument later about what was priced and so you have something to show the Authority if it asks.
Both are done at the survey and neither costs you anything. Inside the house none of it applies, unless the cottage is listed, and its heritage and conservation guidance is worth ten minutes if it is.
Who you are dealing with
Your plasterer, and how to check the firm
Our Boscombe base is 17.5 miles from Cadnam and Bartley, and we cover Copythorne, Winsor and the SO40 addresses along the forest edge. For outside work the Park Authority is the planning body, and New Forest District Council looks after building regulations.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen, the owner, comes into your house to look at the walls and price the job himself. A verified customer rated the firm 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit costs nothing and the written quote, broken into lines, costs nothing either. Before you book a visit in Cadnam and Bartley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Cadnam and Bartley?
Most repairs in Cadnam and Bartley 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 Cadnam and Bartley |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for Cadnam and Bartley. New Forest National Park Authority's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Forest North East Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Cadnam and Bartley. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the New Forest National Park, where design is looked at more closely and permitted development rights are narrower. |
Questions
Questions about plastering in Cadnam and Bartley
Cadnam is just outside the conservation area. What still needs consent?
Cadnam and Bartley sits inside the New Forest National Park, and the Park is the planning authority rather than the district council. Bartley also lies within the Forest North East conservation area, while Cadnam village sits just outside it. That means design scrutiny on anything visible from outside, so a change of render material or colour is worth a call to the Authority first, in Bartley most of all. Indoors, nothing needs asking at all unless the house is listed.
Our cottage walls crumble when scratched. What should go on them?
A lime backing coat, gauged to suit what is already there. The older cottages in Cadnam and Bartley have solid walls built to breathe, and often lath overhead. If a wall crumbles when you rake out a joint it will not hold a hard cement float either. We build up in coats and let each one go off in its own time rather than chasing the finish.
Our 1930s Cadnam house has hard grey render. Should it come off?
Not automatically: there is a fair amount of inter war housing in Cadnam, and the sand and cement render from that period is often sound where it has been kept painted and its edges maintained. Tap across the elevation and map the hollow patches; isolated ones get cut out and made good. Once a whole face is failing at the corners and above the openings, patching stops being worth doing and it comes off.
Our bungalow ceilings sag between the joists. Can they be skimmed flat?
Not by skimming alone: every ceiling in a bungalow is a top ceiling carrying loft insulation and whatever else has been stored up there, so the board dishes between the joists. A skim simply follows the dish. We either overboard across the existing ceiling or take it down and reboard, then skim. Which of the two depends on how far it has dropped.
Do we clear the room out, or do you?
You move the small things and the curtains, we deal with the rest. Furniture goes into the middle of the room and gets sheeted, floors are boarded where a mixer is being wheeled through, and the doorway is taped so what comes off stays in the room being worked. In a detached Cadnam house with a hall, the mixing runs outside and never comes in.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering near Cadnam and Bartley
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Get a written price for your plastering
Send the postcode and tell us which room, or which wall outside. We come out, look behind the finish where we can, and put the price in writing.