Plastering in Canford Heath

Skimming over plasterboard is what most walls on the estate need. The old surface is filled, the joints taped with scrim, a PVA or bonding primer goes on, and two coats of multi-finish are trowelled flat and polished. New angle beads go on the corners and window reveals. An average bedroom is a day, and we tell you when it is dry enough for a mist coat.

Ceiling cracks along the board joints. Ceilings in Canford Heath are plasterboard fixed to trussed rafters, and the joints often crack where the boards meet, because the timbers move with the seasons. Filling the crack alone rarely lasts. We screw the board edges back to the truss, tape the joint with mesh and skim the whole ceiling so the tape is buried.

Artex and textured ceilings. Swirls and stipples were everywhere in Canford Heath houses of this age. Skimming over them is the tidy answer: the high points are knocked back, a bonding coat goes on, then a finish. Some textured coatings from before 2000 contained asbestos, so we will not sand or scrape one until a sample has been tested.

Replacing damaged board. After a leak from a tank, a burst pipe or a bath overflow, the wet section of ceiling is cut back to the nearest joists, new board is screwed up, and the patch is skimmed into the old so it does not show under paint.

Rooms rebuilt from scratch. Stud partitions for a new en suite, a garage turned into a room, or an outside wall dry lined with insulated plasterboard. We board, tape and skim, or tape and joint if you want a painted finish without wet plaster. Moisture resistant board goes in bathrooms, and tiling goes on board, not a fresh skim.

Solid plaster where it is still used. Some of the earlier houses on the Canford Heath estate have a sand and cement or gypsum backing coat on the blockwork rather than boards. Where that has blown, it comes off back to firm edges, a new backing coat of bonding or hardwall is floated flat, and the room is finished with a skim.

Coving and stairwells. Plaster coving can be kept and plastered up to, or replaced to match. A stairwell is plastered off a tower or a boarded platform, and that access is priced as its own line.

When we would talk you out of it. A hairline crack at a board joint in a new extension is settling, not failure. Leave it a year, then decorate. We will not sell a full replaster where a patch and a skim do the 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 two storey terraced house with a narrow stairwell, a detached house with a double height hall, and a first floor flat reached by a shared staircase each need reaching and protecting differently. 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.

We plaster across Canford Heath and the rest of BH17, from Gravel Hill to Mannings Heath and from the shops at Adastral Square to Culliford Crescent, from our base in Boscombe, about six miles away. BCP Council is the planning and building control authority.

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 Heath, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Canford Heath 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.