Plastering in Mudeford

Cracked plasterboard ceilings. Mudeford houses of this age went up with plasterboard ceilings nailed to the joists, often with the joints taped thinly or not at all before the finish went on. Over the years the boards move with the seasons and the joints crack in straight lines, and nails work loose and show through as pops.

Where the board is sound, we screw it back to the joists, scrim tape every joint, and give the whole ceiling a two coat skim. Where a board has sagged or got wet from a leak in the loft, that sheet comes out and new board goes up first.

Textured ceilings. The seventies were the peak years for Artex and similar coatings. Skimming over one is cleaner and cheaper than scraping it off, and it leaves the coating undisturbed. Some coatings put on before 2000 contained asbestos, so if yours is to be scraped, sanded or cut for a new light, it is tested first. A deep stipple may need a bonding coat before the finish plaster will hold flat.

Skimming walls. A sound wall is cleaned, sealed with PVA or a bonding agent, and given two coats of multi-finish trowelled smooth, with new angle beads on corners and window reveals. Most rooms are a day, and a whole bungalow in Mudeford can be worked through room by room so you keep a kitchen and a bedroom going.

Walls that have let go. On block or brick walls finished in a gypsum backing coat, a patch can come away and sound hollow. We cut back to firm edges, put the backing on again in bonding or hardwall, float it flat and skim. On dry lined walls, where the board is stuck to the wall on dabs of adhesive, a loose sheet is refixed or replaced rather than skimmed over.

Damp before plaster. If a wall is damp, we find why first. Near the sea in Mudeford, a lot of it is wind driven rain getting through a cracked render or a tired window seal, and plaster over that fails the same way again. Salts brought through by damp also spoil new gypsum, so a wall like that may want a salt resistant backing.

Where the damp comes from outside. Plenty of houses in Mudeford are rendered, and a sand and cement render that has cracked or blown lets the rain straight through to the plaster. Mending it is a separate job with its own scaffold: hacked back, a scratch coat, a basecoat with mesh bedded in at the weak points, then a topcoat, or a silicone thin coat over a fresh primer, finished at a bell cast above the damp course. It is on our rendering page, and we check it before plastering inside.

Stairwells. The tall wall over the stairs in a town house is done from a tower or a boarded platform, never a ladder on a step, and that access is a line on the quote.

Dry lining and partitions. Stud walls when a bungalow is re-planned, new plasterboard over a wall past saving, and insulated plasterboard on a cold outside wall, finished with a skim or tape and joint.

Making good. After a rewire, a new boiler, a blocked up fireplace or new windows, we patch in so the repair disappears under paint. We would talk you out of a full replaster where a few square metres of patching will do.

No rate per square metre, because two rooms of the same size can be a day apart once you have seen the walls.

Getting to it. A single storey bungalow with every ceiling on one level, a three storey town house with a tall stairwell, and a second floor flat reached by a shared staircase are not reached or protected the same way. Ceilings and stairwells need a platform, and a room you are still living in needs protecting rather than emptying. Where the work is at height the work at height rules apply just as they do on a roof.

What is behind it. Skimming over sound plaster is a different job from taking a wall back to brick, and you often cannot tell which you have until something is tapped. Lath and lime, old bonding, dot and dab and bare block all take different preparation and a different number of coats.

The awkward parts. Reveals, beads, stop ends, arches, curved walls and getting a flat finish where an old ceiling has dropped. The middle of a wall is quick. The edges are where the day goes.

Comparing quotes? Ask how many coats are included, whether the walls are being skimmed or taken back, whether beads and making good are in the price, and who moves and protects the furniture.

We plaster across Mudeford, Stanpit and Friars Cliff, from the quay and Avon Beach back towards Christchurch, in BH23, from our base in Boscombe, about four miles west. BCP Council is the planning and building control authority.

You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of 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. Before you book a visit in Mudeford, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Mudeford 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.