Plastering in New Milton
Ceiling skims, textured coatings taken back, dry lining, making good after other trades and render across New Milton, priced in writing after a free visit.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Ceilings here are plasterboard nailed to joists and walls are a backing coat on brick or block, because New Milton is largely post-war and eighties housing. Both take a fresh finish over the top once the fixings and the joints have been sorted, which is why nearly everything is a skim, with very little stripping out. The render on the seaward side is the one outside job that is genuinely different.
Plastering in New Milton covers shabby ceilings, seventies textured coatings, walls left rough by other trades and crazed seaward render. A ceiling that has gone shabby, with nail heads pushing little domes through the paint and a hairline crack running dead straight across it. A textured coating from the seventies that everyone has finally had enough of. Walls left in a state by another trade, usually after new windows or a rewire. And a rendered elevation facing the sea that has crazed and sounds hollow when you tap it.
All four are ordinary work and none of them is a whole-house job unless you want it to be. We come out, tap the walls and ceilings, tell you what is actually loose and what only looks tired, and put the price in writing. The visit and the itemised quote are free, and we will tell you when a room only needs decorating.
The work
The boards were nailed, and the nails have let go
The boards were nailed, and the nails have let go. On the post-war and eighties stock across New Milton the ceiling boards were nailed, not screwed, so the nails work loose and push a small dome through the finish, and the joint between two boards opens as a straight hairline.
Skimming over that buries it for a year. The boards go back tight with screws first, the joints are taped, then two coats of finish plaster go on with a trowel. Where boards are sagging or have been soaked by a leak from the flat above, and a quarter of the homes in New Milton are flats, a fresh layer of plasterboard over the top is quicker and far less mess than pulling the old ceiling down.
Textured coatings are common on ceilings of this age. A shallow pattern stuck fast can be skimmed straight over, heavy swirls get knocked back first, and a ceiling patched round a light fitting is better over-boarded. Anything textured put up before 2000 can contain a little asbestos, so it is sampled rather than sanded, and boarding over leaves it undisturbed.
Behind the paper on most houses in New Milton is brick or block with a backing coat of browning or hardwall and a thin finish over it. Sound walls get prepared, sealed and skimmed; hollow patches come off and the backing coat goes back first, floated out and ruled level, and once the finish has dried out a thinned mist coat goes on before you decorate, because new plaster drinks the first coat. Making good behind other trades is a big part of plastering in a town like this: new windows leave the reveals and sills to be re-formed with fresh stop bead, a rewire leaves chases, and a removed chimney breast leaves a scar across two rooms.
The plots have room around them, so there are plenty of extensions, garage conversions and loft rooms, where the board goes on dot and dab or screwed to a stud, then tape and joint or a full skim, and the insulation sits behind the board and has to satisfy building control before it is covered. Outside it is gables, dormer cheeks and whole elevations, much of it sand and cement and a good deal of it pebbledash, and under three miles from the sea the weather comes at it off the south west. Cracked panels are cut out and patched; where most of an elevation rings hollow it comes off and goes back as a thin coat system with a bell cast bead at the base. For the outside walls, see rendering in New Milton.
How it runs
Plastering a New Milton room, from strip to skim
Thomas comes out, taps the walls and ceilings to find what is hollow, and prices the job himself. The written quote is itemised: what comes off, how each background is prepared, the beads, the backing coat, the finish coat or skim, the making good and the waste.
Most homes in town are post-war or eighties, so you usually find plasterboard ceilings, some with an artex finish, and blockwork walls with gypsum plaster. Lath and plaster turns up only in the few older houses. Older artex can contain asbestos, so it is tested before anyone sands or scrapes it. Flats over shops in the town centre and blocks with a shared stair mean carrying everything up and protecting the common parts. We sheet the floors, keep the dust to one room where we can, and take the old plaster away. Where a ceiling proves worse once it is opened, we stop, send you photographs and price the extra before touching it.
Work inside needs no planning permission. Old Milton Green is the town's small conservation area; outside it an external finish is normally your choice, and inside it you check with New Forest District Council. Building control applies when a garage or loft becomes a room, or where a renewed render brings in Approved Document L.
Cost
What decides a plastering price in a BH25 home
Sound plaster gets a skim; blown plaster gets stripped. Where the old plaster is still stuck fast, a skim over it is quick. Where it has come away from the blockwork and rings hollow, it comes off to the background, which means a backing coat and a finish coat instead of one thin skim.
Artex ceilings. Plenty of seventies and eighties homes in New Milton have textured ceilings. Older artex can contain asbestos, so a sample is tested before anyone sands or scrapes it. Then the choice is to overboard with new plasterboard and skim, or skim straight over, and overhead work always takes longer than walls.
Carrying and parking. A bungalow off Ashley Road with a drive, a terraced house with the van parked in the street, and a flat up a shared stair above a shop are three different days before a bag is mixed. Outside work on a full elevation needs scaffold, a priced line under the work at height rules.
Why it went. If plaster has blown from damp, the cause is found before the wall is redone. On a seaward wall it is often rain through tired pointing, and plastering over that wastes money.
Ask anyone else whether the old plaster is coming off or being skimmed over, what backing coat is going on, and whether the artex has been tested.
If it has started to come down
A ceiling sagging after a leak from upstairs
Ring rather than use the form. A ceiling that has started to bow, or plaster coming away in sheets, is dangerous, so keep out of the room and do not sleep under it.
If the water is coming from a flat above, turn the water off or ask your neighbour to, and put a bucket under the drip. The first visit makes the ceiling safe by taking down what is loose or propping it, and we price the repair once it has dried. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For something like this, ring us instead of writing in, and if we cannot pick up we ring back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
The seaward wall is where the plaster blows first
New Milton sits under two miles from the beach and the weather comes off the sea from the south west, so one or two elevations of your house take a beating that the rest never see. The walls that fail here are the south west gable, the chimney and anything above a bay.
Rigid sand and cement render is brittle, and repeated wetting with salt in the water opens hairline crazing, then water gets behind a panel and it sounds hollow when you tap it. Paint over that and you seal the water in and lose the panel faster. Inside, that is the wall where the plaster blooms and blows above the skirting, and replastering it before the outside is sorted buys you one winter.
On an exposed wall a thin coat system beats a rigid one: a primer, a basecoat with mesh embedded in it so movement does not telegraph through as a crack, and a silicone topcoat that sheds driven rain but still lets the wall dry outwards. A bell cast bead at the bottom and proper stop bead at the reveals matter more here than the colour does, because wind driven rain finds the edges first.
If the budget only stretches to part of it, spend it on doing the seaward elevation properly, not all four cheaply. And render will not go on in frost or a strong wind, so a January quote may well be a March start, which is worth knowing before you chase somebody who promises otherwise. Planning Portal guidance on external walls sets out the few cases where changing an external finish needs permission at all.
Who you are dealing with
The firm that plasters your walls
New Milton sits eight miles from our Boscombe base. We plaster across the town, Barton on Sea, Bashley, Milford on Sea, Everton and the BH25 streets either side of the railway; planning and building control are New Forest District Council's.
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. The business is Thomas Hannen's, and he looks at the room and prices the plastering in person. A verified customer rated the firm 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. Neither the site visit nor the itemised written quote costs you anything. Before you book a visit in New Milton, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in New Milton?
Most repairs in New Milton 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 New Milton |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest District Council is the planning authority for New Milton. The National Park boundary runs close by, and the Park's property map shows which side an address falls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Old Milton Green Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around New Milton. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers New Milton. |
Questions
Questions about plastering in New Milton
A third of New Milton is 1980s. Any plastering quirks?
The main one is dry lining. Around a third of the housing here dates from 1983 onwards, with the 1980s the single biggest decade, and by then boards on adhesive dabs had replaced a wet backing coat on blockwork. That means hollow walls throughout, taped joints instead of solid plaster, and repairs that involve cutting a board section out instead of filling. Hanging anything heavy needs a proper fixing back to the blockwork behind.
Ours is a terrace. Will the neighbours feel the ceiling work?
They will hear it. A quarter of the housing in New Milton is terraced and another quarter is flats, so many homes here have somebody the other side of a wall or under the floor. Bringing a ceiling down is the loud part and we keep it to normal working hours. Give the neighbours a day's notice. Where a party wall is being cut into rather than skimmed, that has to be settled before we start.
The window fitters are coming. Who sorts out the reveals?
We do, once they have finished and the frames are sealed. Making good after new windows matters in New Milton, because so much of the stock is 1980s and the original units are all being swapped now. Reveals and the internal sill get made good, and where the render outside has been chopped we patch it in a matching finish rather than leaving a grey band round the frame.
Under two miles from the sea. Does salt reach us?
It does, at just under three kilometres inland, though not as hard as on the front itself. In practice that means beads and any other metal in the render corrode from the exposed edge inwards while the face still looks sound, so a corner stains and then breaks away. Stainless beads go on the south west facing walls for that reason. Rust marks running down from an arris are the sign to watch for.
What happens to a ceiling once it comes down?
It leaves in bags along a sheeted route, straight into the van. Old bonded ceilings are heavy and full of decades of dust, so the room is emptied or covered, doorways are taped, and an extractor runs in the window while the boards come off. Carpets get sheeted and lifted at the edges wherever skirting is coming away. None of it sits in a pile on the drive overnight.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering near New Milton
Nearby places we also cover for plastering, with straight-line distances from New Milton, and the other trades we offer in New Milton itself.
Plastering nearby
Our other trades in New Milton
Plastering and rendering guides
Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Hollow-sounding wall: blown plaster or dot and dabBuilders in New Milton: all our building work Everything we do in New Milton Plastering, all areas Every area we cover
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Get a written price for your New Milton plastering
Send the postcode and tell us which rooms or which elevation. We come out, tap it, and put the price in writing with the days it will take.