Plastering in Lymington

Water runs sideways behind the dabs. Most houses here from the eighties on are plasterboard on dabs against a block inner leaf, and the eighties are the biggest single slice of the town. A damaged area does not get filled. It gets cut out square back to sound board, a new piece fitted and fixed, then taped and skimmed so the repair does not print through the paint later. Where a leak has been at it the board comes out further than the stain, because the void behind the dabs carries water sideways.

The commonest job in the newer housing is a line of cracking along a board joint or round the perimeter where the ceiling meets the wall. That is movement in a taped joint rather than a failing ceiling: cut out, re-taped and skimmed, with the whole ceiling skimmed after if you want to be sure the repair never shows. Older ceilings towards the town centre are lath and plaster, where the key breaks off the laths and the ceiling sags: down, boarded and skimmed, or fixed from above where it is worth keeping. Artex on the seventies houses skims flat over the top, and we never sand it.

A taped and jointed finish is flat but thin, and after thirty years of fixings and knocks it looks it. A full skim over the existing board gives you one hard surface, and it is quick because there is nothing to hack off: two to four days for a three bedroom house with the rooms empty.

Solid walls in the older streets. Down near St Thomas Street and the quay the walls are solid brick with lime plaster on them and no cavity behind, and the town carries something like a hundred and sixty listed entries, a good number of them in those streets. Those walls get lime plaster back rather than gypsum, in a scratch coat and a render coat where the wall is bare, because a solid wall has to dry out through its own surface.

Extensions and garden rooms get dry lining on dabs where the blockwork is fair, stud partitions where a wall has to be built, then tape and joint or a full skim over the lot, with angle bead on every external corner and stop bead where the plaster stops against a frame. Kitchens and bathrooms get moisture resistant board first, then a skim and a mist coat before any proper paint.

The older bungalows and semis around the edge of the town carry painted sand and cement render and pebbledash, and four kilometres from the water, on the south west face, it goes blown and hollow at the top of the wall first. Small areas are cut out, primed and patched. Whole elevations come off and go back as a mesh reinforced basecoat with a silicone thin coat topcoat, or a through-coloured monocouche if you would rather never paint it again, over a bell cast bead clear of the damp course and with the scaffold on its own line in the quote.

There is no useful rate per square metre. Plasterboard on dabs with a void behind it, solid brick with lime plaster on it, and a wall that has been wet for a month are three different prices for what looks from the doorway like the same room. A terrace off the High Street with residents parking, a semi on an estate with its own drive, and a first floor flat up a shared stair are three more before anything is carried in. Ask whether it is a skim or a full replaster, and who takes the waste.

We cover Lymington and Pennington, Walhampton, Boldre, Sway, Everton and Milford on Sea across SO41. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.