Plastering in Merritown
Replastering wet walls, skimming, ceiling repairs and external render around Merritown and BH23, with the drying time priced honestly rather than skipped.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
Plastering is the last job on a wall at Merritown that has been wet, not the first. Replastering over a wall that is still drying is money spent twice. So the useful thing we can tell you on the first visit is whether it is ready and what it wants when it is.
Merritown sits low, with a high surface water risk across it and the Moors River about a kilometre off, so a fair share of the plaster trouble out here starts with water: a tide mark above the skirting, plaster blowing along the bottom of a wall, or salts blooming through paint that was fine last year. The rest are the ordinary run of the trade, ceilings that have cracked or started to bow and rooms that want skimming before a decorator comes in.
The survey is a knuckle on every wall and ceiling and, where water has been involved, a look at where it came from before anything else. You get a written price with the drying, the stripping and the finish kept on separate lines. The site visit and the quote are free, and we are only about three and a half miles away past the airport.
The work
Nothing goes back on until the wall is dry
Nothing goes back until the wall is dry. The order matters more than the material. First find where the water came in, because a finish coat over a live leak or a bridged damp proof course fails exactly where it did before.
The ground does not help: Merritown sits in flood zone 2 with a high surface water band and the Moors under a kilometre away. Then the loose plaster comes off, and it comes off well above the tide mark, not level with it, because the damage runs higher than the stain. Then the wall dries, and that takes as long as it takes. Only after that does a backing coat go on, bonding on a dense face and browning or hardwall on something thirstier, floated out and ruled level.
A wall that has been wet a long time carries salts up through the plaster, and salts pull moisture out of the air for years afterwards, so a skim straight over it stays cold and blows again. The options are a sacrificial coat expected to come off, a renovating backing coat that holds the salts back, or on a solid wall a breathable lime plaster. Where a ground floor has been wet once, assume it can happen again: board on stud or on dot and dab, finished in tape and joint with an angle bead at every corner, fixed above a plinth, clear of the floor, the bottom board run horizontally, so only one strip has to come off next time.
The base of an external wall is where most of the trouble round here starts. Render run down over the damp proof course bridges it and feeds water into the wall behind, and a path built up over the years does the same. The fix is to cut the render back and finish it on a bell cast bead with a visible gap above the damp course. A failed elevation goes back as a thin coat system, not the old pebbledash. For the outside walls, see rendering in Merritown. We will talk you out of replastering before the wall has dried, and out of PVA sold as a damp cure.
How it runs
Plastering a room here: how the job goes
Thomas comes out, taps the walls and ceilings to find where plaster has blown, and prices it himself. Stripping, boarding and plastering are all on the one quote. The quote lists protection, taking off old plaster, any new plasterboard, the backing coat, the skim and disposal.
Floors and stairs are sheeted, and doorways are sealed with dust sheets so the rest of the house stays clean. Furniture needs to come out of the room, and we help with the heavy pieces. Old plaster goes out in bags to the van, not left on your drive. If a damp wall, a rotten lath or a cable in the wrong place turns up behind the old finish, we down tools, show you, and give you a price for it. Drying time is built into the plan, because a skim on a wet wall fails.
Outside work is a planning question only in a few cases. Merritown has no conservation area and just a handful of listed entries in the parish, so on an ordinary house you can re-render an elevation in a similar finish without an application. Planning Portal guidance on external walls shows the limits and the council keeps the list of designated buildings. If most of an elevation's render comes off, Approved Document L asks whether insulation should go on while the wall is bare.
Cost
Why one room's plastering costs more than another's
Plastering in Merritown has no rate per square metre, because what is behind the finish sets the job. Skim or replaster. A sound wall with a tired surface needs a skim coat. Plaster that has blown, sounds hollow or comes away in your hand has to come off back to the masonry, and a backing coat goes on before the skim. That is a lot more work.
Board or plaster. A cracked lath and plaster ceiling is often taken down and replaced with plasterboard, then skimmed. That means more waste and more time.
Wet walls. If a wall has been damp, from a leak or from surface water sitting against the outside, it must dry before plaster goes on. Finding and stopping the cause comes first, and drying time is its own line.
Moving things. An empty room is quicker. A kitchen, a staircase or a room full of furniture takes longer to protect and work round.
Outside render. The south west wall here takes the weather, so render on that side is usually the first to crack.
Ask anyone quoting: is it a skim or a full replaster? How long before a mist coat and decorating? Who takes the waste away?
If it has come down
A ceiling down, or plaster falling off
Pick up the phone rather than using the form. A ceiling that has cracked and sagged, plaster coming off in sheets, or a wet patch spreading across a wall needs looking at quickly.
Keep people out of the room if the ceiling is bowing, and switch off the lights on that circuit if water is near a fitting. The first visit is about making it safe, taking down anything loose and finding where the water is coming from. The replaster is priced once it has dried. Planned plastering runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If we are mid-job and miss you, we return the call as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Low ground, and what that means for the walls
Parts of Merritown fall inside flood zone 2, the surface water risk across the area is rated high, and the Moors River runs about a kilometre away. Risk is mapped address by address, and one house can differ from the next, so the government flood risk service is worth two minutes on your own postcode before you spend anything on a wall.
What matters for plastering is not the map, though. It is that a wall which has taken water once behaves differently forever afterwards: it holds salts, it dries slowly from the middle out, and it will show through a new finish coat months after everything looked fine.
So the practical advice is to slow down and change the specification and not rush the same job back in. Give the wall real drying time before any plaster goes near it. On a thick masonry wall that means months. Strip well above the tide mark, because the damage always runs higher than the stain.
Then think about the rebuild as something that might have to come off again: a bottom board run horizontally on a dry lining system, or a sacrificial coat you accept will be replaced, costs very little extra now and turns a repeat into a small job. Tanking and pumps are a different trade, and we will say so. Plaster is no cure for water.
Who you are dealing with
The plasterers you would be letting in
Merritown is near the airport in Hurn parish, BH23, about 3.6 miles from our Boscombe base. Like Bournemouth and Christchurch, it is covered by Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council.
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, is Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes into your house to look at the walls and give you a price. On Checkatrade, a verified customer rated us 10 out of 10. Both the visit and the written, itemised quote are free of charge. Before you book a visit in Merritown, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Merritown?
Most repairs in Merritown 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 Merritown |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Merritown. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Merritown, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Merritown. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Merritown. |
Questions
Questions about plastering in Merritown
We are in flood zone 2. Does that affect replastering?
Flood zone 2 affects what goes back on a Merritown wall rather than whether the work can happen. Merritown sits in flood zone 2 with a high surface water band, and the Moors runs about a kilometre away, so the bottom of a ground floor wall can take water from below or from a saturated surface. Where that risk is live we leave the lower section in a cement based backing that survives a soaking instead of gypsum.
Water came in last winter. When can the walls be redone?
Not until the wall itself has dried, which after standing water means months, not weeks. Skimming over a wall that is still holding moisture traps it, and the finish blows again inside a year. So we open the bottom up, take off whatever has gone, and leave it exposed to dry properly. Given how much surface water gathers around Hurn, it is worth sorting the drainage outside while that is happening.
What render suits a wall that faces the weather here?
Something that flexes. The exposed face here looks south west and sits about seven kilometres from the coast, so it gets driven rain repeatedly instead of an occasional soaking. A silicone topcoat over a mesh reinforced base coat handles that cycle without cracking. Sand and cement on the same wall goes hard, splits at a corner, and then feeds water in behind itself, which leaves you worse off than bare masonry would.
Access here is a lane. Where does the van go?
On the property, normally: most houses around Hurn have room off the lane, and we would far rather stand on the drive than block a single track for a week. If a scaffold is going up for render we need a clear run alongside the elevation and somewhere the boards can be dropped off. That gets walked through with you on the visit so nothing turns up on the day that cannot get in.
Do we need council permission for external render here?
On a normal house, no: there is no conservation area over Merritown and only three listed entries in the area, so recoating a wall is maintenance and the colour is up to you. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council is the planning authority if you want that in writing. If the house happens to be one of the three, or you are changing the material rather than renewing it, that conversation comes first.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering near Merritown
Nearby places we also cover for plastering, with straight-line distances from Merritown, and the other trades we offer in Merritown itself.
Plastering nearby
Our other trades in Merritown
Plastering and rendering guides
Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Hollow-sounding wall: blown plaster or dot and dabEverything we do in Moordown Plastering, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get a written price for plastering in Merritown
A free site visit, an honest answer on whether the wall is ready, and an itemised written quote.