Plastering in Redlynch

Post-war rooms, now on their second re-skim. Getting on for half of Redlynch, Woodfalls and Morgan's Vale went up between the war and the early eighties, and those houses are now on their second round of decorating over tired plaster.

Where the background is sound we prepare it, brush it clean, seal it depending on how thirsty it is, and lay on two coats of finish coat. Where the wall has blown it comes off back to the brick and a backing coat goes on first, browning or hardwall on solid brickwork, bonding where the background is a patchwork of brick, block and old infill. Later extensions are board on dot and dab or on a stud, then tape and joint or a skim. Corners and reveals in that stock were run to a galvanised angle bead or a stop bead, and a rusted bead is cut out and the corner run in.

Plenty of the houses in Redlynch are single storey, so the ceilings are wide and unbroken with no floor above to work off. Textured coatings are normal on them for the age of the stock: a shallow pattern stuck fast gets skimmed straight over, and heavy swirl is better over-boarded with the joints taped. Anything textured from before 2000 can hold a trace of asbestos, so it is sampled rather than sanded.

A good share of the parish predates 1919: brick and rendered cottages along the lanes, some still thatched, with a solid wall and no cavity behind the paper and a lath ceiling overhead. Those walls have to stay breathable, so lime plaster, haired in the backing coats and laid on riven lath, is what goes back, and it wants proper drying time before a mist coat goes on and the room is decorated. The pebbledash and roughcast outside is nearly all sand and cement, which is rigid and cracks in the end, and once water is behind it whole panels sound hollow, and what goes back on modern block is a silicone thin coat or a monocouche.

We do not quote by the square metre, because the same room can be a day or a week depending on what is on the walls.

Skim or strip. Sound plaster that still grips only needs a skim. Once it has blown, it all comes off, a backing coat is floated on and ruled level, and then the finish goes on.

Old walls. A house built before the First World War usually has lime plaster on solid walls, and sometimes lath ceilings. Gypsum on those walls traps damp, so repairs are done in lime, which has to be left between coats and takes longer. A post-war bungalow lined in plasterboard is quicker work.

Ceilings and stairs. A ceiling is slower than a wall of the same size, and a stairwell needs a platform before anyone can reach it.

Outside. Rendering a whole gable means scaffold, which the work at height rules make a separate line, and where more than a patch of render is renewed, Approved Document L may call for the wall's insulation to be brought up to standard. For the outside walls, see rendering in Redlynch.

Questions for any other plasterer: is the old plaster being skimmed or stripped, is lime or gypsum going onto the old walls, and who makes good round the sockets and switches.

We work out of Boscombe, near Bournemouth, 18.2 miles from Redlynch. We plaster across SP5, including Woodfalls, Morgan's Vale and Lover, and down through Downton and Fordingbridge, with Wiltshire Council as the authority for Redlynch.

Behind the firm is Thomas Hannen, who looks at your walls and prices the job personally. On paper it is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. On Checkatrade one verified customer scored the work 10 out of 10. The visit and the itemised quote in writing are both free of charge. Before you book a visit in Redlynch, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Redlynch 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.