Plastering in Fordingbridge
Lime and lath in the old town, skims and dry lining on the estates, render outside. Across Fordingbridge and the SP6 villages.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
The first question on a Fordingbridge job is what the wall is made of. In the middle of the town it is often solid brick with lime plaster on it, and out on the estates it is blockwork or plasterboard. The repair that is right for one is the wrong repair for the other, so we tap it over and look before we quote.
Plaster in Fordingbridge needs attention when a ceiling or a low wall gives way. A ceiling has cracked or started to come away, and in an older house nobody can say whether the lath behind it is still holding. A wall has gone soft, dark or powdery near the floor.
Or a room is being brought up to date, the artex is coming off, a chimney breast is going, and it all needs to finish flat and ready to paint. We come out, look at what is behind the surface as well as at the surface, and tell you which of those you are dealing with.
The work
Lime by the bridge, gypsum on the estates
Lime and lath by the bridge. Plenty of the housing near the bridge and the High Street is solid walled, with lime plaster on it and lath overhead. Where the lath is sound and only the surface has crazed, the loose material comes off and it is re-skimmed.
Where the plaster has parted from the lath and the ceiling is bellying down, it comes down and goes back as plasterboard on the joists, taped and jointed at the edges. On a solid wall the backing coat goes back in lime, not gypsum, so the wall dries outwards instead of holding water against the brick.
The houses built in Fordingbridge from the fifties through to the eighties are blockwork with a browning or hardwall backing coat and, more often than not, a textured ceiling. Prepared, PVA'd where porous and given two coats of finish off the trowel, a ceiling is a day and a room is two. Where a backing coat has let go it sounds hollow and often looks perfectly fine, which is why we tap it and do not trust our eyes. It comes off back to sound material and is floated flat in bonding or hardwall before the finish. If the wall is still wet we will not skim it, because it will blow a second time.
Dry lining on the newer estates. A good share of Fordingbridge is plasterboard on dot and dab with taped joints rather than solid plaster, so a wall that sounds hollow out there is how it was built rather than a fault. We board back to the studs where it has been knocked about and fit stud partitions where a room is being split, with angle beads at the external corners and every reveal beaded. The flats above the town centre shops bring their own list: a top floor ceiling put back after a roof leak, a bathroom ceiling under somebody else's shower, communal stairs made good, and nothing left stacked by a shared front door.
Outside, a cracked panel over a sound background is cut back, given a scratch coat and matched in. A whole elevation that has gone hollow comes off and goes back on a mesh reinforced basecoat under a silicone thin coat topcoat, or a K render or monocouche for a through colour, on a bell cast bead at the base. On an old solid wall we would talk you out of sand and cement altogether and put lime back on it. For the outside walls, see rendering in Fordingbridge.
How it runs
Plastering a room, from hacking off to the final skim
Thomas comes and taps the walls and ceilings, because a hollow sound tells you where the plaster has come away from the background. The written quote lists protecting the room, hacking off the old plaster, any plasterboard and angle beads, the backing coat, the finishing skim and making good, one item at a time. One company sees it from the dust sheets to the last coat.
In a seventies or eighties estate house the work is usually re-skimming over plasterboard or boarding a ceiling, one room at a time so you can live around it. In an older Fordingbridge town centre cottage the walls may be lime on brick and the ceilings lath and plaster, which is slower and needs lime to go back. A flat above a shop in the centre means everything goes up a shared stair, so the floors and the stair are protected. Furniture is covered, doors are taped against dust, and the rubble goes away with us. When a wall lets go over a bigger patch than it looked, Thomas shows you on his phone what has come off, prices the extra, and holds it until you agree.
Indoor plastering is not something you apply for, except on a listed building, where hacking off lime can need consent first; Other permissions you may need explains which applies. Outside, renewing render on a wall that is already rendered is maintenance, rendering a bare wall is normally permitted development outside the town centre conservation area, and the Planning Portal's external walls page sets out the rest. New Forest District Council is the authority.
Cost
Skim or full re-plaster: what the price turns on
No rate per square metre, because tapping the wall tells us far more than measuring it. Skim or back to brick. A sound wall on an estate house that only needs a skim is quick. A wall where the old plaster has blown has to be hacked off, a backing coat applied and then a finish, which is several times the work.
Lime or gypsum. The older houses round the centre of Fordingbridge were plastered in lime, and a solid wall needs to stay breathable. Patching it with gypsum traps damp in the wall. Lime goes on in coats with drying time between them, so a room takes longer.
Ceilings. An old lath and plaster ceiling with a bulge can sometimes be screwed back to the joists with plaster washers. If it is too far gone it comes down, which is dusty, and new plasterboard or fresh lath goes up.
Getting materials in and waste out. A ground floor room in a bungalow is easy. A flat up a shared stair above a shop is slow. Outside, a tower or scaffold for render is its own line, because work at height rules set the platform.
Check with any other plasterer whether they are skimming or re-plastering, which plaster they will use, and who clears the waste.
If it has come down
A ceiling bulging or plaster coming off the wall
If a ceiling is sagging or dropping plaster, clear the room and keep everyone out, because a ceiling that has taken water can come down all at once. If a wall has gone soft or stained, the water has to be found and stopped before any plasterer can help, whether it is a roof leak, a pipe or damp from outside.
Use the phone, not the form. We take down anything loose on that first visit, prop or sheet a ceiling that is still hanging, and trace where the water came from, so the make-safe holds until the proper repair. Our planned work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Ring off without an answer and we phone you back the moment we are able.
Worth knowing
Plaster, and the Avon at the bottom of the town
The low ground either side of the river gets wet, and every so often it gets very wet. If that is your address, the thing to understand about plaster is that it behaves like a sponge with a memory. Water soaks into the wall and carries salts through it, and as it dries those salts come to the surface, push the finish off the backing coat and leave a white bloom and a hollow patch.
Painting over it or filling it does nothing, because the problem is behind the paint. You can check what your own address is exposed to with the government flood risk service, which will tell you more than a neighbour's memory of a bad winter.
What that changes is the timing more than the technique. A wall that has been wet through has to dry before anything goes back on it, and that is weeks rather than days, longer on a solid wall. Anyone offering to re-plaster next week is selling you the same job twice.
We would rather take the affected plaster off, cut it out well above the line the water reached, get air moving and come back. When it does go back, lime on an old solid wall and a renovating backing coat on a modern one both cope with salts far better than an ordinary skim, and skirtings and sockets are worth leaving off until the wall behind them has properly dried.
Who you are dealing with
The plasterer's details, and how to check them
Fordingbridge is 14.1 miles up from our base in Boscombe. We plaster in the town and in Sandleheath, Alderholt, Godshill, Stuckton, Burgate and the SP6 villages either side of the river, with New Forest District Council as the council.
Our registered company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, England and Wales, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen owns it and taps your walls himself before he writes the price. We hold a verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. Neither the visit nor the itemised quote in writing costs you anything. Before you book a visit in Fordingbridge, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Fordingbridge?
Most repairs in Fordingbridge 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 Fordingbridge |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest District Council is the planning authority for Fordingbridge. The National Park boundary runs close by, and the Park's property map shows which side an address falls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Fordingbridge Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Fordingbridge. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Fordingbridge. |
Questions
Questions about plastering in Fordingbridge
The estate went up in the 1970s. Why crack now?
Because that generation of wall was built to move and the finish on it was not. Around 41.2% of Fordingbridge homes date from between 1945 and 1982, with the peak in the 1970s and early 1980s at 16.5%, so lightweight blockwork under a sand and cement backing is common. The block settles and shrinks, the finish coat cannot follow, and the crack appears at the weakest line, usually a corner or a door head.
Is a hollow wall in a newer Fordingbridge house a defect?
Usually not: newer housing around Fordingbridge is dry lined, which means plasterboard stuck to the blockwork on dabs of adhesive instead of a wet backing coat trowelled on. Tap it and you get a drum sound over the void between dabs, and that is how it was built. What matters is whether the board gives under hand pressure and whether the tapered joints have opened. Movement and open joints are a fault. Drum sound on its own is not.
Which council decides whether we can render the front?
New Forest District Council is the planning authority for Fordingbridge. The town centre is covered by the Fordingbridge Conservation Area, and an external repair in the same material is normally maintenance rather than something you apply for, inside it or out. Changing the material or the colour of a whole elevation is where it gets looked at, and inside the conservation area that deserves a word with the council first. There are 49 listed entries in the town, the Old Manor House among them, and a listed wall is a different conversation.
We are putting a bedroom in the loft. Any Avon rules?
Not normally, if the bedroom is for your own household. Fordingbridge drains to the River Avon, and the catchment rules are aimed at a new dwelling, an annexe or a holiday let, so a loft bedroom in your own house is not normally caught, and a repair or a re-skim never is. The plastering is never the trigger. If the room might be let, settle that with the council before we come in to board and skim it.
What does Thomas look at before pricing a ceiling?
He gets into the loft first where there is access, because the top of a ceiling tells you more than the underside. From above you can see whether it is boards on joists or lath and lime, whether fixings have pulled, and whether a tank or a pipe has leaked. From below he taps for hollow patches and sights along the joists for sag. The written itemised quote follows, and neither the visit nor the quote is charged for.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering near Fordingbridge
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Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Hollow-sounding wall: blown plaster or dot and dabEverything we do in Verwood Plastering, all areas Every area we cover
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Tell us the address and what you have noticed. We will come out, tap it over and put an itemised price in writing. No charge, and no obligation.