Plastering in Milford on Sea

Salt gets to the bead buried in the corner. Galvanised angle bead and stop bead were standard for decades, and less than a kilometre from the water the coating gives up and the steel rusts.

Rust takes up more room than steel does, so it lifts the render off the corner in a strip, usually down an external angle or around a window reveal. The repair is to cut the render back beyond the damage, take the old bead out completely, never render over it, fit stainless mesh bead, and rebuild the corner in a basecoat with mesh before the topcoat.

The exposed side of nearly every house here faces south west, into wind-driven rain off the water. A rigid sand and cement render on that elevation cracks and holds water in the wall. Where it has to come off completely, a scratch coat, a mesh-reinforced basecoat, a primer and a silicone topcoat sheds water at the surface and still lets the wall dry. For the outside walls, see rendering in Milford on Sea.

A quarter of the homes in Milford on Sea are flats, so a good share of this work belongs to a freeholder or a management company, not to whoever can see the crack. We quote those itemised by elevation, with the scaffold and its standing time on its own line so it can be split fairly between leaseholders. Where leaseholders are being recharged for a major job, section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 sets out the consultation the landlord has to run before the work starts, and an itemised quote is what that process needs. Inside a block it is stairwell ceilings, hallway walls and making good after a leak from the flat above.

Salt earns its reputation on the inside face too. Old render and old masonry near the sea hold hygroscopic salts, and salts pull water out of the air long after the wall has dried, so the patch stays cold and blooms back through fresh paint. Find the water path first, then use a renovating backing coat that holds the salts back, or on a solid wall a breathable lime plaster. Sealing the wall up with a waterproof coating and hoping does not work.

Over half the town went up between the war and the early eighties: a block inner leaf, a float coat and a gypsum finish usually still stuck, so walls that knock solid take two passes of finish coat and walls that drum come off and take a new backing coat. About one house in nine predates 1919, solid wall construction where lime and a breathable render are the right repair, not a matter of taste, and twenty-eight entries in Milford on Sea are listed. Extensions and loft rooms at the other end are dry lining, taped, beaded at every corner and reveal, then skimmed.

Plastering is not priced by the square metre, because the wall behind the finish is what decides it. Skim or replaster. A sound wall needs only a skim. Blown plaster comes off back to the masonry, and a backing coat goes on before the skim, which is far more work.

Salts from old damp. In older houses near the sea, salts left behind by past damp push through a new finish as a white bloom. They need dealing with, usually with a salt-resistant backing coat, or they come straight back.

Access. A bungalow on one of the roads behind the front, where a tower reaches every wall, is simple. A flat where the managing agent sets the hours, or a house near the cliff where scaffold must be braced against the wind, is not.

Ceilings. A cracked lath and plaster ceiling is often taken down and replaced with plasterboard, then skimmed, which means more waste and time.

Drying. Walls that have been wet have to dry out before plastering, and that has its own line.

Ask anyone quoting: a skim, or a full replaster? Are the salts being treated? How long before a mist coat?

From Boscombe to Milford on Sea is 10.3 miles. We plaster across the village, Everton, Hordle and this stretch of the coast, where planning and building control sit with New Forest District Council. The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Milford on Sea, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Thomas Hannen owns it and comes into your house to look and price the work himself. A verified customer left us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The site visit and the itemised written quote are free of charge.

Most repairs in Milford on Sea 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.