Plastering in Canford Cliffs
Skimming, artex skimmed over, ceilings boarded and walls made good, in flats and houses across Canford Cliffs.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
Most plastering in Canford Cliffs is inside flats and post-war houses: skimming over artex, replastering after a rewire or a new kitchen, and boarding a ceiling that has cracked or sagged. We quote each room and each coat separately, in writing.
The reasons a room in Canford Cliffs needs a plasterer are fairly settled. You have bought a flat or a house that needs taking back to smooth walls before you decorate, and the ceilings still carry a textured finish from the 1970s. An electrician or a kitchen fitter has left a trail of chases and patches across the walls. Or a ceiling has cracked along the board joints, or come down after a leak from the flat upstairs.
We come and look, tap the walls, and tell you which can be skimmed over and which need more before anything is priced. You get a written quote that shows the difference.
The work
Artex, plasterboard and the flats above the pines
Skimming is the everyday job. Walls and ceilings in sound condition get a PVA or bonding primer to control suction, then two coats of finish plaster, trowelled flat and left to dry. A standard room is usually a day, with the ceiling done first. We cover floors and anything left in the room with dust sheets instead of asking you to empty it.
Artex ceilings. A lot of the housing in Canford Cliffs went up in the 1970s and early 1980s, which is exactly when textured ceilings were fashionable. A shallow artex can be sealed and skimmed. A deep swirl is better overboarded with new plasterboard and a skim. We never sand or scrape it, because textured coatings from that period may contain asbestos, and we will say so before we start.
Plasterboard and dry lining. Newer walls in Canford Cliffs are mostly plasterboard on dot and dab or on studs instead of a wet backing coat, and the fix is different. A cracked joint gets cut back, taped and filled, and a damaged board is cut out and replaced. BS 8000-8 sets out how dry lining should be fixed. New stud partitions for a reconfigured flat are board, tape and joint, then skim.
Older walls. The few earlier villas have lime plaster on brick or on lath, which needs to stay breathable. Blown lime plaster is patched in lime, and a sagging lath ceiling is either fixed back or boarded, never covered in gypsum as if it were a modern wall. Where a post-war wall has been hacked back to brick for a new kitchen, it gets a hardwall or browning backing coat, ruled and floated flat, then the finish coat.
Beads, corners and making good. Angle bead on every corner, stop bead at the reveals, and patching after new sockets or a moved doorway. A high stairwell or a double height hall gets a tower for access, not a ladder. Outside, render is a different trade, whether sand and cement, a silicone thin coat, K Rend or monocouche over a mesh basecoat, and our rendering page covers it.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
One person to ring from the first visit to the last. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: protection and prep, how many coats, the area of each wall and ceiling, beads and stop ends, and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Internal plastering needs no planning permission, even in the parts of Canford Cliffs that are in a conservation area. A new partition or a ceiling that separates two flats can bring in building control for fire and sound, and in a listed building, such as St Ann's Hospital on Haven Road, even internal work can need listed building consent.
Cost
What decides the price of a plastering job
No rate per square metre, because two rooms of the same size can be a day apart once you have seen the walls.
Getting to it. A top-floor flat in a block with a lift, a first floor flat with a long carry up the stairs, and a detached house with its own drive are very different days, and on a block the parking and the lift often decide when we can start. Ceilings and stairwells need a platform, and a room you are still living in needs protecting rather than emptying. Where the work is at height the work at height rules apply just as they do on a roof.
What is behind it. Skimming over sound plaster is a different job from taking a wall back to brick, and you often cannot tell which you have until something is tapped. Lath and lime, old bonding, dot and dab and bare block all take different preparation and a different number of coats.
The awkward parts. Reveals, beads, stop ends, arches, curved walls and getting a flat finish where an old ceiling has dropped. The middle of a wall is quick. The edges are where the day goes.
Comparing quotes? Ask how many coats are included, whether the walls are being skimmed or taken back, whether beads and making good are in the price, and who moves and protects the furniture.
If a ceiling has gone
A ceiling down, or plaster off a wall
Ring rather than use the form. A ceiling that is sagging, cracked in a line or dropping dust is the one thing here that will not wait, and nobody should be under it.
The first visit is about getting what is loose down safely and the room usable, and we quote the making good once we can see how far the failure goes. In a flat, if the water came from above, tell the flat upstairs and the managing agent before anything else, and keep out of the room if the ceiling is bulging. Wet plaster has to dry out before it is judged, so we check for lasting damp before deciding what comes down. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring rather than use the form, and if we cannot pick up we ring you back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
A wall that sounds hollow here is usually meant to
Most of Canford Cliffs was built after the war, and much of the housing from the 1970s onwards was lined with plasterboard stuck to the blockwork on dabs of adhesive. Tap one of those walls and it sounds hollow all over. That is how it was built, not a sign that the plaster has blown, and it does not mean the wall needs stripping.
It changes the job in practical ways. Heavy shelves and televisions need fixings made for plasterboard, or a fixing into the block behind. A crack along a board joint is a tape and fill repair, not a replaster. And if someone quotes to hack off and replaster a whole room because it sounds hollow, ask them to show you where the board has come away from its dabs. On the older villas it is the opposite: there, hollow usually does mean blown, and those patches come off.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Canford Cliffs from the shops on Haven Road down to Cliff Drive and the chines, and across BH13 into Branksome Park, a little over four miles from our base in Boscombe. BCP Council is the building control authority here.
You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of 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. Before you book a visit in Canford Cliffs, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Canford Cliffs?
Most repairs in Canford Cliffs 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 Canford Cliffs |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Canford Cliffs. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Branksome Park and Chine Gardens Conservation Area and Canford Cliffs Village Conservation Area. They cover parts of Canford Cliffs, so check whether your street is inside one. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Canford Cliffs. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Canford Cliffs. |
Questions
Questions about plastering in Canford Cliffs
Can you plaster over artex?
In most cases we can. A shallow texture is sealed and skimmed. A deep one is overboarded first. Either way we do not sand it, because older textured coatings may contain asbestos.
How long before I can paint?
Fresh plaster needs to dry right through, which takes days rather than hours and longer in winter. When it has gone an even pale pink, put on a mist coat of thinned emulsion first, then decorate.
Do I need permission from the freeholder to plaster inside my flat?
Normally not for skimming, which is decoration within your flat. Moving a wall, or anything that touches the structure or the ceiling between you and the flat above, usually needs the freeholder's consent under the lease, so check before booking.
Will it be messy?
Plastering makes dust, so we sheet the floors, cover what stays in the room, and clean up at the end of each day. Old plaster and board leave with us.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering near Canford Cliffs
Nearby places we also cover for plastering, with straight-line distances from Canford Cliffs, and the other trades we offer in Canford Cliffs itself.
Plastering nearby
Our other trades in Canford Cliffs
Plastering and rendering guides
Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Hollow-sounding wall: blown plaster or dot and dabEverything we do in Canford Cliffs Plastering, all areas Every area we cover
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Get a price for plastering in Canford Cliffs
Tell us which rooms and what state the walls are in. We will tap them, tell you what they need, and put an itemised price in writing.