Plastering in Cranborne

Lime plaster on brick, flint and cob. A single old wall in this village can be three materials at once: brick at the openings and quoins, flint panels between, and cob or soft rubble further back. Each behaves differently under a coat.

Flint is glassy and gives plaster almost nothing to grip, cob is soft and moves with the weather, and the brick sits somewhere between. So the wall is dubbed out in successive coats of haired lime, each left to firm before the next, then floated and finished fine. It is slower than gypsum and it is the only thing that will stay on that wall.

Old ceilings in Cranborne are riven lath with lime pushed through, and where a building has a timber frame the whole structure moves a little with the seasons. That is why a crack keeps reappearing along the line where a ceiling meets a wall, and why filler never holds it. The junction wants a material that can move, reinforced and finished in lime, not a rigid gypsum skim that cracks in the same place next winter.

A solid wall with no damp proof course dries through its own face. Put a cement plinth round the bottom, a plastic paint inside or a hard sand and cement render outside and the moisture comes out through the plaster instead and takes it off the wall. The plaster is the symptom, so we look for the cause first. On the newer infill houses and converted outbuildings it is ordinary work: board on dot and dab or on stud, finished in tape and joint, with an angle bead on every corner and a stop bead at each reveal, and a hollow sounding wall in one of those is dry lining doing its job. On their blockwork outside a silicone thin coat is the right answer, not lime. For the outside walls, see rendering in Cranborne.

The background decides a plastering price more than the area does. Skim or strip. Sound plaster just needs a skim. A blown wall is hacked off and built back with bonding, browning or hardwall, floated flat before the finish. A flint wall is lumpy and eats material and time to dub out.

Lime or gypsum. Lime goes on in thin coats, each left to firm up, so the same wall takes more days than gypsum. On an old solid wall it is the right choice, and the quote allows the time honestly.

Ceilings. A sagging lath and plaster ceiling may be screwed back or may have to come down and be replaced with plasterboard and a skim. Taking one down is filthy work, and on a listed building it may not be allowed.

Outside. Render needs a tower or scaffold, which the work at height rules require us to price properly. Re-rendering a whole wall is renovating a thermal element, so Approved Document L and building control are involved.

Access. A street cottage with no back way means mixing at the front door and carrying every bucket through.

Ask any other plasterer whether walls are skimmed or stripped, which backing coat, and whether making good and waste are included.

Our base in Boscombe is 13.9 miles from Cranborne. We plaster in the village and in Wimborne St Giles, Edmondsham and Alderholt, across the BH21 addresses on this side of the Chase, with Dorset Council for planning and building control.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is the company, registered in England and Wales, number 15471719. It is Thomas Hannen's firm, and he is the one who taps your walls and prices the plastering in person. One customer, verified by Checkatrade, gave us 10 out of 10. We charge nothing for the visit, and nothing for the itemised quote you get in writing. Before you book a visit in Cranborne, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Cranborne 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.