Plastering in Hyde

Three coats of lime, each in its own time. The older buildings in Hyde are one thickness of brick or cob with no cavity, and they were plastered in lime for a reason.

We work in three coats the way the wall expects: a scratch coat pushed well in, a float coat brought true, and a fine finish trowelled up. It takes longer than gypsum because each coat has to set in its own time, and it is the difference between a wall that dries out and one that pushes salts through your paint every spring.

Old ceilings are lime pressed through timber lath, held up by the nibs squeezed out over the top. When those break the ceiling bows and drops dust. Firm to the palm and only hairline cracked, it can be over-boarded and skimmed. Moving under your hand, it comes down, the joists are checked while they are open, and it goes back in board and skim, or in haired lime where the building is worth it.

After water has been in. A burst pipe in an empty cottage, a gutter that has run down a wall all winter, a shower that has leaked behind the tiles. The flood zones do not reach the village but the surface water risk here is high and Huckles Brook runs a little over half a kilometre off, so walls that have had water up them are a real risk here. The plaster is the last part of that job, not the first: skirtings off, the loose material back to something sound, and the wall left open to dry properly before anything covers it up. On a dry lined wall the board itself wicks water up and has to be cut out, because there is no drying a soaked plasterboard. A band of blown plaster a foot off the floor usually means ground levels outside have crept above the inside floor, or that cement render is holding water in, so we look outside first and put breathable lime back rather than sealing the wall up again.

The rest is ordinary work and plenty of it. Artex over-boarded and skimmed rather than scraped, because a coating put up before the turn of the century can hold asbestos fibre. Dabbed walls that sound hollow, damaged corners cut back to board and let in square, plasterboard on a stud, tape and joint, angle bead on the corners and stop bead at the reveals. Outside, an old building gets a lime render and limewash; on a modern house it is cracked sand and cement replaced with a primer, a mesh reinforced basecoat and a silicone thin coat topcoat on a bell cast bead. For the outside walls, see rendering in Hyde.

Plastering in Hyde has no rate per square metre. The price is set by what is on the walls and ceilings now.

The rooms. Narrow doorways, low beams and walls out of true in a cottage slow everything down before a bag is opened. In a newer house near the lane, it is a barrow and a dust sheet. A tall outbuilding with an open roof needs a tower inside.

Skim or strip. Where the wall is sound, a skim is quick. Where the backing coat has blown, it comes off down to the masonry and is built back up. On an old solid wall, lime lets moisture out where gypsum can trap it, though lime takes longer, with waits between coats.

Ceilings. A lath and plaster ceiling that has dropped a little can sometimes be pinned back and repaired. Too far gone, it comes down, and plasterboard and a skim go up in its place, fixed as the code of practice for dry lining describes. That is messier, but quicker.

Height. A stairwell or a vaulted room needs a platform, and the work at height rules apply indoors as well.

Ask other plasterers whether they mean a skim or a full replaster, lime or gypsum and why, how many beads are allowed, and who takes the waste away.

Our base in Boscombe, Bournemouth, is 12.7 miles from Hyde, and we plaster in Frogham, Godshill, Fordingbridge, Sandleheath and the rest of SP6, inside the New Forest National Park. The planning authority is the New Forest NPA.

The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. The business is Thomas Hannen's own. He taps over the walls, looks at the ceilings and writes the price. On Checkatrade, one verified customer's score for us is 10 out of 10. The survey visit is free, and so is the itemised quote in writing. Before you book a visit in Hyde, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Hyde 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.