Plastering in Matchams
Skimming, replastering, ceiling repairs and weather-side render around Matchams and BH24, priced in writing after somebody has knocked the wall.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Nothing in Matchams is listed and there is no conservation area over it, so what goes on the outside of your house is a technical choice rather than a planning one. Inside, the usual question is whether a wall wants a skim or has to come off, and that is settled by knocking it.
Matchams is scattered, so we do not pretend to know a property here before we have stood in front of it. Most calls are one of three things: a ceiling that has cracked or started to sag, plaster that has blown on a cold outside wall, or render on the weather side of the house that has crazed, greened over and started to drum when you tap it.
The survey is a knuckle on every wall and ceiling in the room and a proper look at the elevation from a ladder or a tower rather than from the drive. You get a written price that keeps the skim and the strip out on separate lines, so you can see which you are paying for. The site visit and the quote are free and we are only six or seven miles up the road.
The work
Render always goes at the edges first
Render goes at the edges first. The most exposed elevation of nearly every property out here faces south west, which is the direction the rain arrives from with the wind behind it. That elevation fails first and it rarely fails in the middle. It goes at the edges: around the window reveals, at the verge, where a downpipe has been leaking onto it, and along the base where there is no bell cast bead and the render has been run down over the damp proof course. So the beads matter more than the flat surface. Corner bead on every angle, stop bead where the render finishes against a frame, a bell cast at the base, and mesh over any lintel where movement will show as a crack.
Nothing in Matchams is listed and no conservation area applies, so the finish is genuinely open. A rigid sand and cement render on a wall wetted and dried this often will craze, and once the cracks are there the wall behind takes water and holds it. A mesh-reinforced silicone system copes better: a scratch coat, a render coat with mesh embedded in it, a primer, then a topcoat that sheds water and still lets the wall dry. Monocouche carries the colour through the material. Pebbledash is repairable, but matching it across a patched elevation is honest work and we say so first.
Inside, walls that knock solid are prepared, PVA'd where the suction is high and given two passes of finish coat, and there is no reason to strip them, while walls that drum come off back to the masonry and take a new backing coat of bonding, browning or hardwall floated level. Newer rooms out here are board on dot and dab or on stud, finished in tape and joint rather than skimmed, and repaired the way they were built. A cold wall that never dries or a tide mark above the skirting is a symptom rather than the job, and we find the water first, because a finish put on a wall that is still wet fails again, and new plaster wants a few days before a mist coat and paint.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The quote is itemised rather than one figure on the back of a card, and anything uncovered behind the old finish stops the job for a photograph and a price. Matchams is unusual on this patch: no conservation area over it and nothing in it listed, so the material and the colour outside are yours to choose and re-rendering an elevation needs no planning permission. Planning Portal guidance on external walls sets out where that stops, and listed building consent only comes into it if you own something listed elsewhere. Building control still applies, because Approved Document L asks whether the wall should be insulated while it is open. Dorset Council for both.
Cost
What decides the price
No rate per square metre. What is behind the finish decides it: a sound wall wants a skim, a blown one comes off back to the masonry and brings a backing coat into the job. Round Matchams access is usually a property set well back off the lane with room for a mixer and a skip on your own ground, or a bungalow where a tower reaches the whole of the render. Ask whether a quote is a skim or a full replaster, whether the beads are in the figure, and how long the platform stands.
If it has come down
A ceiling down, or plaster coming off the wall
Ring rather than use the form. A ceiling that has cracked and dropped, plaster coming off in sheets, or a wet patch spreading across a wall goes to the front of the queue. We are six or seven miles away on the Ringwood road, so a same-day look is normally straightforward, and there is usually somewhere to stand a van without blocking the lane. The first visit is about making the room safe.
Worth knowing
Nothing here is listed, so the finish is your decision
It is worth knowing how unusual that is on this patch. Most of the villages around here carry either a conservation area or a scatter of listed buildings, and both of those decide the material on your outside wall before you have had an opinion about it. Matchams has neither. On an ordinary house here you can take off a tired pebbledash and put a thin coat silicone render on instead, change the colour, or add an insulated render system, without applying to anybody for permission to do it.
That puts the decision back where it belongs, on how the wall behaves. The exposed elevation faces south west and takes driven rain, so the useful question is not what looks nicest from the lane but which system copes with being soaked and dried a hundred times a winter. A mesh-reinforced silicone topcoat moves with the wall and lets it dry; a rigid sand and cement render on the same elevation cracks and then holds water in the wall behind it.
Two things still sit outside your choice: building control if you are renewing render across most of an elevation, because that is when insulating the wall gets asked about, and your own address, because designations are drawn address by address and worth checking rather than assuming.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
About seven miles from us, covering Matchams, St Leonards, St Ives and the BH24 addresses along the Ringwood road, with Dorset Council for planning and building control. 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.
Questions
Matchams questions we get asked
Nothing here is listed. Does that make rendering straightforward?
It does. Matchams has no conservation area and no listed entries at all, which is unusual on this patch, so on an ordinary house the render and its colour are your decision and the work sits inside permitted development. Green Belt policy still bears on a new outbuilding or an extension, but it has nothing to say about recoating a wall that already exists. Dorset Council is the authority if you want that confirmed.
What render copes with driven rain out here?
A mesh reinforced silicone system. The exposed elevation faces south west and takes the weather straight on even at nearly ten kilometres inland, and silicone stays flexible and sheds water, so repeated wetting and drying does not split it. Rigid sand and cement looks solid for a few years and then cracks, usually at a corner or over a lintel. Mesh in the base coat is what stops those cracks travelling across the elevation.
Do you render through a wet autumn out here?
Not on a south west facing wall in the middle of one. Render needs a dry background going on and a clear run without driven rain while it cures, and the exposed elevation here catches the worst of the weather. So we work the sheltered sides first and hold the weather face for a settled spell. Frost is the other stopper. If a forecast turns we sheet the scaffold rather than push on and end up with a patchy finish.
What can I look for myself before calling you out?
Stand back from the south west elevation on a dry day and look for hairline crazing, a patch that dries slower than the wall around it, and any bulge under the sills. Then knock the render low down. A hollow drumming note means it has parted company with the wall behind. Photograph whatever you find, and Thomas Hannen can tell you on the visit whether that is a patch or a whole elevation.
What is actually written on the quote for render?
Each element on its own line: preparation and hacking off, beads, base coat and mesh, topcoat, scaffold, and making good around meter boxes, vents and pipework. Waste removal is separate again. Elevations are listed one by one, so you can drop the sheltered side and do the south west face only if that is all that has gone. The site visit and the written itemised quote are free, and VAT is charged on top of the total.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering and rendering near Matchams
Plastering and rendering nearby
Our other trades in Matchams
Everything we do in West Moors Plastering and rendering, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get a written price for plastering in Matchams
A free site visit, a proper look at the weather elevation rather than a glance from the drive, and an itemised written quote.