Plastering in Langton Matravers
Render repairs, replastering and skimming across Langton Matravers and Purbeck. We tap the wall before we price it, and the quote comes in writing.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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If a bedroom wall on the south west side of a Langton Matravers house has a damp patch and the plaster sounds hollow, look at the render outside that same wall first. It is usually one elevation of work, not the whole house, and the inside is replastered once the outside is right.
On a Langton Matravers house the sea-facing wall is where plaster and render both give way, and some houses simply want skimming throughout. Blown, salty plaster inside on the wall that faces the sea. The render outside that same wall, crazed, hollow under a knuckle and dropping flakes into the border, which is the same fault from the other side.
Or a house that wants the whole of it skimmed before anyone decorates. We come out and tap every wall in the room, and the render outside it, not just the one crack you rang about. Often only one wall has failed, whatever somebody else has quoted.
The work
Blown plaster on the seaward wall, and what goes back
Sound plaster rings, blown plaster drums. The wind and rain come off a sea two and a half kilometres away onto the south west walls, and where water has been getting through for a while the plaster on the inside face is blown and usually carrying salts.
It goes on ruining paint until it comes off. It gets hacked back, the wall is left to dry, then a backing coat to suit the background and a finish coat over it. On old rubble that means lime, so the wall keeps breathing. We will not book that part of the job until the outside is right.
Outside, the render on that wall is tapped right across, because the hollow area is nearly always bigger than the crack. One failed panel is cut out square and patched to match. Where more than about a third has gone, it comes off and goes back as a mesh reinforced basecoat under a silicone thin coat or a monocouche, or as lime in a scratch coat and a render coat on old rubble, off a bell cast bead clear of the damp course. For the outside walls, see rendering in Langton Matravers.
Ceilings are lath and plaster in the older cottages of Langton Matravers, where the key snaps off the back of the laths long before the plaster looks bad, and plasterboard in everything newer, where the fault is a nailed joint that has cracked: down and re-boarded, or fixed and skimmed, depending on what is left holding it up. Artex over either one skims flat in two passes, and we never sand it. Extensions and garden rooms get dry lining on dabs where the blockwork is fair, stud walls where it is not, tape and joint or a full skim, and angle bead on every external corner, plus the ordinary making good after new windows or a bathroom, which takes a morning.
How it runs
Lime on stone walls, a skim on the extension
Thomas looks at every wall and ceiling in the rooms concerned, not just the one you rang about, and prices the plastering himself. Stone walls want lime, which lets damp breathe out through the surface. Put gypsum on the same wall and it tends to blow and stain. A blockwork extension or new plasterboard takes a gypsum skim. The written quote covers dust sheeting and preparation, the number of coats, beads and stop ends, and carting the rubble off.
From the strip to the finish, one company answers for the job. Carpets and furniture are covered, doorways are screened so the dust stays put, and the rubble leaves each day. Lime goes on in coats with drying time between them, and windows are opened so it can cure. If stripping back uncovers a rotten lintel or a wall that is wet behind, you are shown it in a photo with a price, and nothing more comes off until you agree.
Replastering inside needs no planning permission, and patching render like for like is repair. Where the house is listed, listed building consent is needed first for anything that comes off, inside or out. Re-rendering a whole elevation brings in building control, because Approved Document L treats it as renovating a thermal element. Dorset Council handles both, and can advise on the Langton Matravers Conservation Areas 1 and 2, which cover the village.
Cost
Wet stone walls cost more to plaster than dry ones
Plastering in Langton Matravers has no useful rate per square metre. What is behind the plaster. Purbeck stone rubble with lime on it, a blockwork extension with sound gypsum, and a wall that has been wet for a couple of winters are different jobs for the same area.
Why it got wet. Near the coast, south west walls take driven rain, and salts drawn into plaster keep pulling moisture back in. The cause is found and dealt with, and lime used, before a new finish goes on, or the stain comes back.
Ceilings. Lath and plaster may be fixed back if it is sound. If not, it comes down and plasterboard with a skim goes up.
Coats and drying. Lime goes on in thinner coats with time between each, so a lime job takes longer on site than a gypsum one, and the room is out of use a little longer.
Access. A cottage with its front wall on the pavement and no parking means materials carried further. A stairwell needs a tower under the work at height rules.
Before choosing, ask whether another quote is for a skim or a full replaster, what plaster goes on a stone wall, and who takes the waste.
If it has just gone
A ceiling down or plaster off a wall after a leak
If a ceiling has dropped, plaster has come off after a leak, or render has come away from a gable, ring rather than use the form. Keep everyone out from under a sagging ceiling, and switch off the lights in that room if water has reached them.
The first visit brings down whatever is loose, covers the room and traces where the water came from. The repair is quoted once the full extent is clear. Scheduled work is Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If nobody is free to answer, a return call follows as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
The weather side is a different wall
The weather in Langton Matravers decides the render, and it only comes from one direction. Driven rain off the sea lands on the south west walls, and being under three kilometres from the coast the salt in it keeps the surface damp between showers instead of letting it dry out.
A wall that never fully dries moves, and a rigid sand and cement render on a moving wall cracks. Every hairline crack is a one way door: rain gets in behind the render and cannot get back out, so the render lets go from the wall in sheets and the first you know of it is a hollow sound or a damp patch on the bedroom wall inside.
So the plaster on the inside of that wall goes back only once the outside is sound, and in a breathable finish, so any salts left in the wall come out through the surface and not through your paint.
Painting over crazed render only seals the wet in. And on stone that was never rendered, leave it alone. Repointing is the right trade for that wall, not us.
Who you are dealing with
Plasterers covering Harmans Cross, Acton and the villages
Boscombe, where we are based, is 11.2 miles off. We plaster in Langton Matravers and in Acton, Harmans Cross, Kingston, Worth Matravers, Corfe Castle and Swanage across BH19, which is Dorset Council's area. The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Langton Matravers, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Walls and ceilings are looked at by Thomas Hannen, whose business it is, and he writes the price himself. A verified customer on Checkatrade gave us 10 out of 10. There is no charge for the visit or for the written, itemised quote.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Langton Matravers?
Most repairs in Langton Matravers 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 Langton Matravers |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Langton Matravers. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Langton Matravers Conservation Area 1, Conservation Area 2 and Acton Conservation Area 1 and 2. They cover parts of Langton Matravers, so check whether your street is inside one. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Langton Matravers. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Dorset National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about plastering in Langton Matravers
What does the Langton Matravers conservation area actually control?
The look of the place from outside. Within the designation the external face of a building is what is protected, and there are 50 listed entries in Langton Matravers on top of it, which is a lot for somewhere this size. Renewing a render in the same material and finish sits on the maintenance side of the line. Changing the system or the colour does not, and Dorset Council will want to know first.
Under two miles from the sea. Which render lasts here?
A flexible one on mesh, not a rigid sand and cement. At 2.6km from the coast with the exposed face looking south west, walls in Langton Matravers get driven rain and salt in the same weather and stay wet long after the shower has passed. Sand and cement is strong but it does not move, so it splits first at the openings, then water works behind the panel and lifts it off.
Why does the seaward wall stay damp between showers?
Salt: it sits on the surface and in the pores, holds moisture out of the air, and keeps that face from drying properly, which is why the elevation nearest the 2.6km of open coast greens up and loses its paint film first. Salt also eats metal from the edge inwards, so beads, mesh and any exposed fixing corrode and stain through the finish. Anything metal on that wall has to be stainless or well buried.
Does the coastal landscape designation affect a change of colour?
It adds a layer of scrutiny to anything you can see from the road or the coast path, because the village falls within the Dorset National Landscape, formerly the AONB, with the World Heritage coast to the south. That is separate from the conservation area and works on the same principle. A matched, quiet finish passes without comment, where a strong colour on a visible elevation invites an argument you do not need to have.
Can one elevation be re-rendered instead of the whole house?
That is usually the sensible job here. The exposed face takes the weather and the sheltered sides can be years behind it, so doing all four at once often means replacing render that has plenty of life left. Getting the join right is the trick, and a break at a corner or under a bargeboard reads far better than a line across open wall. We price the failed face on its own.
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Tell us the address and what you have noticed. We will come out, sound the walls, and put an itemised price in writing. No charge, and no obligation.