Plastering in Holton Heath
Ceilings, damaged dry lining, conversions and external render across Holton Heath and BH16. We look at the room before anybody talks about money.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Most of what goes wrong in a Holton Heath house is on the surface, not behind it. Joints showing through a ceiling, a corner knocked off, a wall damaged when the units came out: none of that needs a wall taking back to the block. It needs the damage cut out properly and the whole room skimmed to one surface so the repair stops showing.
Holton Heath rooms need a plasterer when board joints show through a ceiling, when a refit has taken lumps out of the walls, or when gable render is coming away. A ceiling where you can see every board joint and every fixing through the emulsion, usually worse in low winter sun. A room being brought up to date, where the kitchen or the bathroom has come out and taken lumps of the wall with it.
And a gable outside where the dashed render has cracked and started coming away in patches. For the outside walls, see rendering in Holton Heath. All of them are ordinary work and all of them are quicker and cheaper if somebody looks first. We come out, go round the room by hand, and the price goes to you in writing.
The work
Every board joint drawing a line through the paint
Every board joint drawing a line through the paint. The houses built here through the eighties, and the eighties are the biggest single slice of this place, have taped and jointed ceilings rather than a full skim: the board joints scrimmed and filled, sanded, and painted straight over.
It looks perfect for years, then the boards move a fraction with the seasons and every joint and every screw draws a line through the paint. Filling them again gets you another two winters. Skimming the whole ceiling in one pass puts a continuous finish coat over the lot and ends it, and it wants a few days before a mist coat and decorating.
Dry lining is the standard in Holton Heath, board on dabs with a gap behind and then skimmed, so a wall that sounds hollow is normal. What is not normal is a corner knocked through to the paper, or a patch filled four times that still shows: cut back to a clean square, new board let in, a fresh angle bead on the corner, and the wall skimmed out so there is no patch to catch the light. Bungalows are common here and most have textured ceilings, which get over-boarded and skimmed, never sanded, because anything applied before the turn of the century can hold asbestos fibre.
Conservatories becoming proper rooms. Once a conservatory becomes a heated room the walls and roof have to perform, so the lining is insulated board rather than plain plasterboard on a stud, taped and skimmed, which makes it a thermal element building control will want to see and that Approved Document L sets the target for. Worth pricing in from the start, not finding it halfway through. Where an older wall was floated rather than dry lined, a blown float coat comes off and goes back in bonding, browning or hardwall before the finish. The dashed gables here are sand and cement and let go in sheets, and what goes back is a primer, a mesh reinforced basecoat and a silicone thin coat topcoat on a bell cast bead, or monocouche or K Render.
How it runs
Plastering a room you are living in, step by step
Thomas comes out and taps the walls and ceilings over before pricing, because hollow backing coat and sound backing coat look the same under paint. The written quote prices protecting the room, preparation, plasterboard or a backing coat, beads, the finish coat, making good, and taking the old plaster away.
One company takes it from start to finish. Furniture is moved and sheeted, carpets covered, and the door to the room kept shut to hold the dust in. In a bungalow where every ceiling is being done we work room by room so you still have somewhere to live. Old plaster is bagged and leaves with us. Ceilings in houses of this age often carry a textured coating, and that is tested before anything is sanded or scraped. If that or anything else turns up, you hear about it with a photograph and a price before we go on.
Plastering inside needs no planning permission, and rendering an existing house is normally permitted development. Holton Heath has no conservation area. If you live in one of the few listed buildings in the parish, even removing old lime plaster from an internal wall needs listed building consent first, so ask before work starts.
Cost
Skim, reboard or replaster: what the walls decide
We do not price by the square metre. What is behind the paint decides the job. Skim or strip. A sound wall that just needs a skim is a quick job. Where the backing coat has blown and sounds hollow, it has to come off back to the block, then be built up again with a backing coat and a finish coat. The hollow areas set the hours.
Ceilings. A bedroom ceiling in an eighties detached house is usually plasterboard and can be overboarded and skimmed. A bungalow having every ceiling done is a whole house job worked room by room. A textured ceiling adds a test before anyone touches it, and boards are fixed as the dry lining code of practice sets out.
Outside work. A dashed gable on a two storey semi is a tower or a scaffold before it is anything else, and the work at height rules put that on its own line.
The room itself. Coving, a lot of sockets and switches, or a staircase wall that needs a platform over the stairs all add time. So does a room we have to clear ourselves.
To compare quotes, ask whether the price is for a skim over what is already there or a strip and replaster, whether the ceilings are overboarded, how many beads are allowed, and who clears the waste.
If it has come down
A ceiling that has cracked and sagged, or plaster off the wall
If a ceiling has cracked and started to sag, keep everyone out of the room and phone rather than using the form. Where it is wet, turn off the electrics to that circuit and find where the water is coming from, often a bath or a tank above.
The first visit makes the ceiling safe, either by propping it or taking down what is loose, and we price the repair once any leak has been dealt with and the area has dried. A wet patch spreading across a wall is worth a call too. Our hours for booked work are Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring, and if we miss you we will phone back as soon as we can.
The one local thing
If your job is an annexe or a let, sort the permission before the plaster
Holton Heath drains into Poole Harbour, and the harbour is a protected site with a nutrient problem. The practical effect is that a new dwelling, an annexe or a holiday let in this catchment has to show how the extra nitrogen is being dealt with before the council can grant permission.
That is not a plastering rule, and a loft conversion or a garage turned into a bedroom for your own household is not normally caught by it. Where it can reach a plastering job is an annexe in the garden or a room built to be let, which still ends with somebody boarding and skimming.
So on an annexe or a let the order matters. Get the permission settled first, then book the trades. Otherwise you can end up with an annexe that has no consent yet and no date for one, with the boards already bought and sitting in the garage.
If your project is a room for your own household, a loft bedroom, a bigger sitting room, a utility, a home office, a proper room in place of a conservatory, none of this normally touches you and you can crack on. If it will be an annexe or let to guests, ask Dorset Council first and get the answer in writing, so you do not spend money in the wrong order.
Who you are dealing with
Plasterers based in Boscombe, working in BH16
We come to Holton Heath from Boscombe in Bournemouth, 10.7 miles away, and plaster in Sandford, Organford, Lytchett Minster, Wareham and the rest of BH16, all within the Dorset Council area. The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Holton Heath, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Its owner, Thomas Hannen, does the visit himself, tapping over the walls before he writes the price. A verified customer rated us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. You pay nothing for the survey visit and nothing for a written quote that breaks the job down.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Holton Heath?
Most repairs in Holton 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.
| Question | In Holton Heath |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Holton Heath. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Holton Heath, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Holton Heath. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Holton Heath. |
Questions
Questions about plastering in Holton Heath
Why do the ceiling joints show on 1980s houses here?
Ceiling joints that show on a 1980s house here are the board joints opening, which is the usual pattern on housing of that age.
A lot of Holton Heath went up in the 1980s, and ceilings from then were often taped and jointed rather than skimmed all over, so there is a band of filler over scrim tape at each joint instead of a continuous plaster surface. The tape moves with the boards and the line shows through. A full skim ends it.
Should a hollow-sounding wall in a newer house worry us?
On its own it should not. A good share of the housing here went up after the early eighties, and by then walls were being dry lined, with plasterboard fixed on dabs of adhesive so there is a void behind most of the surface. That is the construction, not a failure. Press the wall with your palm across the room. Solid resistance and tight joints mean it is fine. Give, and open joints, mean the dabs have let go.
Does Poole Harbour affect adding a room over the garage?
Not normally, if the room is for your own household. Holton Heath drains into the Poole Harbour catchment, and the nutrient rules are aimed at a new dwelling, an annexe or a holiday let, so a family bedroom over the garage is not normally caught. If it might be let, ask Dorset Council at planning stage, well before anyone boards a wall. Plastering is not what triggers it.
Bungalow, everything on one level. Does that make it simpler?
For getting the work in, yes. In a bungalow, and Holton Heath has plenty, boards and bags come straight through a door with no staircase or landing to get round, which saves an hour or two at each end of the job. The trade-off is that traffic and dust run along one corridor past every room, so sheeting and a closed door on the rooms we are not touching matter more here.
Can you skim a wall where the tiles have come off?
Yes, once the background is sound. Tiles usually pull the face of the old plaster with them, leaving a patchwork of bare block and torn gypsum that will not hold a thin coat directly. It gets cut back to something solid, dubbed out where the loss is deep, and bonded before the finish goes on. Skimming straight onto tile adhesive residue is what gives you a wall that crazes within weeks.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering near Holton Heath
Nearby places we also cover for plastering, with straight-line distances from Holton Heath, and the other trades we offer in Holton Heath itself.
Plastering nearby
Our other trades in Holton Heath
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 Wareham Plastering, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get the room priced, not guessed at
Tell us what the wall or the ceiling is doing. We come out, go round it by hand, and put a written itemised price in front of you.