Plastering in Corfe Mullen
Ceiling skims, cracked board joints, textured coatings taken back, garage conversions, dry lining and render across Corfe Mullen, 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 plastering in Corfe Mullen is ceiling work, and most of it is a straight skim, not a strip out. The houses here were built with plasterboard ceilings nailed to the joists, so what fails is the joint between the boards and the fixings holding them, not the plaster itself. Screw the boards back tight, tape the joints and skim, and a tired ceiling becomes a flat one in a day.
Corfe Mullen ceilings crack along the board joints, textured finishes outstay their welcome and gable render crazes. A ceiling with a crack running dead straight across it, which is a board joint opening up. The house is not moving. A textured finish that has been up since the place was built and that everybody has finally had enough of. And render on a gable or a dormer cheek that has crazed and started to sound hollow when you tap it.
All three are routine for us and none of them needs the drama some people attach to them. We are only up the road, the site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. If one room is genuinely all that needs doing, that is what the quote will say.
The work
Nailed boards, and the little domes they push up
Ceilings, and there are a lot of them. A third of the homes in Corfe Mullen are bungalows, which means the ceiling is the largest single surface in the house and there is no floor above to work from.
On this stock the boards were nailed, not screwed, so nails work loose and push a little dome through the finish, and the joints between boards open into a straight hairline crack. Skimming over that without re-fixing it buries the problem, so the boards go back tight with screws, the joints are taped, and then two coats of finish plaster go on with a trowel. Where the boards themselves are sagging or water damaged, fresh plasterboard over the top is quicker and cleaner than pulling a ceiling down.
Textured coatings. Very common on ceilings of this age, since a third of the village went up in the 1970s and early 1980s. Shallow and stuck fast, we skim straight over it. Heavy swirls get knocked back first, and a ceiling somebody has patched round a light fitting is better overboarded. Anything textured applied before 2000 can contain a small amount of asbestos, so it is sampled rather than sanded.
Behind the paper on most of these Corfe Mullen houses is a blockwork inner leaf with a backing coat of browning or hardwall and a thin finish over it. Where it is sound we prepare it, seal it and skim it. Where a patch sounds hollow it has blown off the block and comes off, and a backing coat of bonding or hardwall goes back first, floated out and ruled level before the finish coat, which wants a few days to dry before a mist coat and any decorating.
Garage conversions, extensions and loft rooms are natural additions to this stock, because the houses have the space around them and the layouts to suit it. Board on dot and dab where there is blockwork to fix to, board on stud where there is not, tape and joint or a full skim, and an angle bead on every external corner with a stop bead at each window reveal. On a garage conversion the insulation goes in behind the board, which is worth deciding before the boards are ordered.
Render is gables, dormer cheeks and the odd full elevation, mostly sand and cement and some of it pebbledash. Local damage is cut out and patched; a full elevation comes off and goes back as a mesh reinforced basecoat under a silicone thin coat, or a monocouche where the colour runs through the material, with a bell cast bead at the base. For the outside walls, see rendering in Corfe Mullen.
How it runs
Skimming, re-boarding and textured ceilings in estate houses
Thomas comes out and prices the plastering himself. In houses of this age the walls are usually gypsum plaster on block or plasterboard on studs, and many ceilings carry a textured artex coating.
Older artex can contain asbestos, so it is tested before anyone sands or scrapes it, and it is usually skimmed over or boarded rather than taken off. Each part is priced on its own: stripping, beads, a backing coat where needed, the finish coat, making good, and taking the waste away. All of it comes under one company.
Rooms are cleared or sheeted, dust sheets go down on the carpets, and doors are masked to keep dust in. Old plaster and board go out in bags at the end of every day. A cracked lintel, a wet patch from a leak, or old wiring that needs an electrician is photographed and priced for you, and it waits for your say-so.
Nothing inside needs planning permission. Outside, an external finish is normally your own choice; the exceptions are listed buildings and homes in the conservation area at Brogg Street and Sleight Lane, and the Planning Portal's external walls page explains the rules. Building control matters more here: turning a garage or a loft into a room is building work, and the insulation behind the plasterboard has to satisfy the inspector before anything is boarded over. Dorset Council for both.
Cost
Artex, hollow walls and boarding: what sets a plastering price
We do not price plastering by the square metre. The state of the wall under the finish is what sets it.
What the walls are like. Where the plaster is firm, a skim coat over it is enough. Where it rings hollow it has to be hacked off, then a backing coat and a finish coat go on. Every wall is tapped before we quote.
Textured ceilings. An artex ceiling is either sealed and skimmed, or overboarded with plasterboard and then skimmed. Both avoid disturbing the coating. Which suits depends on how flat it is, and an asbestos test is part of the price where there is any doubt.
Access. A detached bungalow with a drive and a side gate, a semi on one of the closes with the van out on the road, and a rear extension reached only through the kitchen differ before any plaster is mixed. External render work is done off a tower or a scaffold, which the work at height rules turn into a separate item.
Conversions. Plasterboard over new insulation in a garage or loft conversion has to meet Approved Document L, and the inspector sees it before it is skimmed.
Ask any other plasterer whether they are skimming or re-boarding, how the artex is being dealt with, and whether beads, making good and waste are all in the price.
If it has started to come down
A bowing ceiling, or plaster coming away from a wall
Ring us, and do not use the form for this. A ceiling that has started to bow, often from a leak in the loft or bathroom above, or plaster peeling off a wall in sheets, comes first.
In a bungalow there is no floor between you and the roof space, so clear the room under it and keep people out. Turn off the water if a tank or pipe is the cause. The first visit makes it safe and prices the repair. Plastering is scheduled Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If we miss you, leave your number and we call back.
Worth knowing
The whole village was built at once, and wears out at once
Almost two thirds of the housing in Corfe Mullen went up between the war and the early eighties, and the biggest single block of it in the seventies. That is unusual, and it changes the advice.
Ceilings of that period are all the same construction, boards nailed to joists and finished with a skim or a texture, so they reach the same point at the same time: fixings loosening, joints opening in a line, and a coating that has been touched up round a light fitting once too often. If a neighbour has just had a ceiling done, yours is the same age and the same build, and what they were told will very likely apply to you.
Planning for that saves real money in Corfe Mullen. Do the whole ceiling, not a metre patch of it, because the rest is the same age and you will be back. Do more than one room in the same visit if you can, since the sheeting up, the mixing station and the tidying are the same whether it is one ceiling or four, and that is where the savings actually sit.
And have any textured coating sampled before anybody sands or scrapes it, because it went on in the years when a small amount of asbestos in the mix was normal. None of that is a reason to hurry. It is a reason to plan it as one job instead of five.
Who you are dealing with
The plasterer who prices it is the owner
We plaster in Corfe Mullen, Broadstone, Lytchett Matravers, Wimborne and the BH21 addresses along the Wimborne road, a run of about eight and a half miles from Boscombe. Planning and building control are Dorset Council's, and if you are unsure we reach your street, send the postcode.
Thomas Hannen owns Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, which is registered in England and Wales under number 15471719, and he comes out and prices the plastering himself. Checkatrade has a 10 out of 10 on record from a verified customer. Both the visit and the written, itemised quote are free. Before you book a visit in Corfe Mullen, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Corfe Mullen?
Most repairs in Corfe Mullen 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 Corfe Mullen |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Corfe Mullen. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Brogg Street / Sleight Lane Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Corfe Mullen. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Corfe Mullen. |
Questions
Questions about plastering in Corfe Mullen
Everyone in our road has the same cracks. Why is that?
Because the road went up in one go. Corfe Mullen built 62.1% of its housing between 1945 and 1982, and 34.5% of the whole settlement in the 1970s and early 1980s, so the houses share an age, a construction and the same plaster on the same board. They dry, settle and crack to the same timetable. That is a cohort reaching the same point together, not a house on the move.
Are there listed buildings in Corfe Mullen, and does that affect us?
Only if your own house is on the list, which you can check by address on the Historic England list. The Brogg Street and Sleight Lane Conservation Area covers only a small part of the parish, so for the great majority of houses the finish on the outside wall is your decision and Dorset Council does not need to see it. That covers a like-for-like render repair or a change of colour. Inside the conservation area, check with the council first. Structural alterations and anything on a boundary are separate questions.
Why does the wall drum when I knock beside the window?
It is plasterboard on dabs with a gap behind it. With 21.4% of Corfe Mullen built between 1983 and 2008, dry lining is common here and that hollow note is normal. It is not a defect. What matters is whether the board is still stuck. If it gives under a push, or the sound changes across a patch a metre wide, the dabs have let go and that section comes off.
What exactly is on the written quote before we agree?
Each room or elevation on its own line, the preparation, the number of coats, the beads and scrim, making good round the sockets and skirtings, and the waste away. Thomas Hannen writes it after the visit and not over the phone. On a Corfe Mullen estate house where the layout repeats down the road we still measure yours, because the extensions and the dry lining are where they differ.
Can a ceiling be done in one day while we are out?
An ordinary sized ceiling, hacked off, boarded and skimmed, is a day for two of us plus drying time. A whole Corfe Mullen bungalow, ceilings and walls together, runs across most of a week because each coat has to go off before the next one can follow. We work room by room so you keep a kitchen and a bedroom in use rather than shutting the house down.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering near Corfe Mullen
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Get a written price for your Corfe Mullen plastering
Send the postcode and tell us which rooms. We come out, tap the walls and ceilings, and put the price in writing with the days it will take.