Plastering in Merley
Skimming, ceiling repairs, garage conversions and external render across Merley and BH21, priced in writing once somebody has knocked the walls.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Almost all of Merley went up inside one twenty-year stretch, so the walls and ceilings here are the same construction street after street and they are reaching the same age together. That makes the work predictable: on most of these houses the plaster is still stuck and it is the surface that has had enough.
The calls come in three shapes. A ceiling has cracked along its board joints, or the Artex on it has finally lost its argument with the decorator. A wall has blown behind the paper, usually on an outside corner or in a converted garage. Or the house is being sold or redecorated and the owner wants the lot skimmed flat rather than filled again.
We come out, knock every wall and ceiling in the room, and separate the ones that only want a finish coat from the ones that have to come off. That goes into a written price with the two kept apart, so you can see what you are choosing. The site visit and the quote are free and we are under six miles away.
The work
Most of the garages here have become rooms
Half the garages here are rooms now. Merley is one cohort ageing together: better than three quarters of it went up between the war and the early eighties, and half the houses are detached with an integral or attached garage, so conversions are a steady run of work. Bare blockwork inside a garage was never meant to be a finished wall, so the answer is dry lining: insulated plasterboard on dabs or on a stud frame, board over the old up-and-over opening once it is filled, joints taped, then a skim. Where a lounge and dining room have been opened into one, the new beam and the old wall stubs need beading and making good properly or the crack comes back along the join within a year.
The rest is whole-house skims before decorating or selling. These are cavity walls with a block inner leaf, a float coat straightened onto the block and a gypsum finish over it, and that backing coat is usually sound half a century on. What has gone is the surface: heavy relief paper, gloss on the reveals, a chimney breast filled and sanded a dozen times. Two passes of finish coat, trowelled true. Where a wall drums over a defined patch the plaster has parted from the block and comes off, and what replaces it depends on suction, bonding on a dense or previously painted face, browning or hardwall on something more absorbent.
Textured ceilings and deep coving came as standard on Merley houses. A shallow Artex pattern can be stabilised, sealed and skimmed; a deep swirl is cheaper overboarded. Coving that is coming away takes the ceiling edge with it, so decide early whether it stays, because taking it off adds a strip of making good all the way round the room. The boards were nailed to the joists in the seventies, so a hairline running dead straight every 1200mm is board movement, not the house cracking up. Where a ceiling has been wet, or bows when you press it, it comes down and goes back new on new fixings.
Outside it is gable ends, porch returns and garage flanks. A crazed or drumming sand and cement render is either patched like for like or stripped back to a scratch coat, a mesh-reinforced basecoat, a primer and a silicone topcoat, with a bell cast bead at the base to keep water off the damp proof course.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The quote is itemised rather than one figure on the back of a card,. There is no conservation area over the Merley estates and the council keeps the list if you want to check your own address rather than assume. The listed entries near here are concentrated on the Canford School estate rather than in the housing, and you can look yours up in the council's listed building records. On an ordinary Merley house the outside finish is your choice and re-rendering in a similar material needs no planning permission, with Planning Portal guidance on external walls setting out where that stops. Renewing render across an elevation is still a building control matter, because Approved Document L asks whether the wall should be insulated while it is open.
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 block and brings a backing coat into the job, and a room with coving, deep reveals and a chimney breast has far more corners to bead than a plain box. In Merley access is usually a detached house with a drive wide enough for a mixer, or an integral garage becoming a room where everything comes in and out past the car. Ask whether it is a skim or a full replaster, and who takes the waste.
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. Merley is under six miles from us, so a same-day look is usually possible and there is nearly always somewhere off the road to put a van. The first visit is about making the room safe.
Worth knowing
The whole estate is the same age, and that works in your favour
More than three quarters of Merley was built between the war and the early eighties, with the biggest single push in the 1970s. That is unusual, and it means the house you are ringing about is very likely built the same way as the one either side of it: the same block inner leaf, the same float coat, the same board ceilings on the same joist centres, and the same textured finish put on by the same trades within a few years of each other. When everything goes up together, everything wears out together.
For you that turns guesswork into something closer to a known quantity. We are rarely surprised once the first wall is open here, so the price on the quote is less likely to move. It also means your neighbour's job is a fair guide to your own: if three houses on the road have had ceilings overboarded and the walls skimmed rather than stripped, yours will most likely go the same way.
The one place the pattern breaks is anywhere that has been altered since, so a garage conversion, a knocked-through lounge or an extension built in the nineties gets knocked and priced on its own rather than assumed to match the rest of the house.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
About six miles from us, covering Merley, Canford Magna, Bearwood and the BH21 addresses either side of the Wimborne road, with Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 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
Merley questions we get asked
Half of Merley went up in the seventies. Does that matter?
For plastering it matters a great deal. Around seventy seven per cent of the housing here dates from 1945 to 1982, with just under half of everything built in the 1970s and early 1980s, so the same materials went on the same walls within a few years of each other. Backing coats of that age give up in the same way and at the same time, usually behind a chimney breast or on the cold external wall of a north facing room.
Our neighbours all had the same ceiling problem. Why is that?
Because the estate was boarded and skimmed in one go and every ceiling is the same age. Plasterboard of that period was nailed rather than screwed, and nails work loose over fifty years of heating cycles, which is why cracks turn up in straight lines along the joists in one house after another down a road. Refixing and taping deals with most of them. A ceiling that has dropped away from the noggins needs boarding again.
We are opening the integral garage into the house. What happens?
We come in once the blockwork, the new opening and the first fix are done and the floor slab is dry. Integral garages on the detached houses here have bare block walls, a beam over the old door position and no plaster anywhere, so it is dot and dab on the outside walls, boarded studwork on any new partition, then a skim throughout. Tell us early, because the boards want to be on before the heating is extended into it.
Does anything in Merley need listed building consent?
Only the twenty six listed entries in the area, and several of those sit in the Canford School grounds, John of Gaunt's Kitchen included. The estate housing is not listed and there is no conservation area over Merley, so internal replastering and external render are your call entirely. If you own an older building near the school, check with the council before anything is stripped, because removing historic plaster without consent is an offence rather than an oversight.
You are only up the road. How quickly can you look?
Merley is under six miles from the yard, so a look at a cracked ceiling or a blown wall is usually a day or two out rather than a fortnight. Thomas Hannen does the visits himself, which means what he says on the doorstep is what ends up on the written quote. If a ceiling has already come down and there is water involved, say so when you ring and it goes to the front of the list.
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Get a written price for plastering in Merley
A free site visit, every wall and ceiling knocked rather than glanced at, and an itemised quote that keeps a skim and a strip out on separate lines.