Plastering in Ridge
Skimming, ceilings, lime repairs and external render for the houses along the lane between Stoborough and the water.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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At Ridge, tap the wall before you ring anybody. A hard, solid sound means the plaster or render is still bonded and a crack is a crack, which is a cut-out and patch. A hollow drumming over a whole panel means it has parted from the wall behind, and no filler, paint or coating over the top of that will hold. Inside it is the same test on the plaster.
Ridge is a short run of houses on the lane down to the water, and the jobs that come off it split fairly neatly. An elevation of painted render, cracked and holding damp, on the side that takes the weather. A room that has been decorated over tired plaster twice too often and now wants skimming flat. A ceiling with a textured coating on it that has started to crack along the board joints.
We do the inside and the outside, and the making good afterwards. The site visit is free and the written quote is itemised, and if patching is the honest answer we will say so, and not sell you an elevation.
The work
Skim, strip or dry line: the wall decides
Skim or strip, room by room. A sound background is prepared, sealed and given two coats of finish coat, and a blown wall comes off back to the brick with a backing coat first, browning or hardwall where the brick pulls the water out of the mix and bonding on a dense or painted face.
The newer houses are dry lined instead, board on dot and dab or screwed to a stud, then tape and joint or a skim. A wall low down that is soft, salty and blowing the paint off is not a plastering fault, it is water arriving from somewhere, so we find where it is coming in before anything goes back on.
Scattered among the newer houses in Ridge are older cottages and converted farm and yard buildings with a solid wall and no cavity. Inside, that usually means lime plaster on lath behind the paper, and a gypsum skim over a wall still carrying moisture will simply blow again. Outside they want a soft, breathable lime mix that can move, because a hard sand and cement cracks off and takes the face of the brick with it.
On the painted render and pebbledash of the newer houses, map cracking lets water sit behind the paint, a straight crack from a window corner is movement, and a panel that sounds hollow has let go. Local damage is cut out square and patched in a matching mix. Where more than about a quarter has gone, it comes off and goes back as a scratch coat, a render coat and a silicone or monocouche thin coat, off a bell cast bead at the base. For the outside walls, see rendering in Ridge.
How it runs
Replastering a Ridge house, room by room
Thomas taps the walls and ceilings with a knuckle, checks damp with a meter, and looks behind skirtings where he can. A wall that is solid at eye level and hollow at head height is a different job, and a photograph will not show it. The written quote lists protection, hacking off, the backing coat, the skim or finish coat, beads, and making good, each on its own line. It runs from start to finish under the one quote.
Inside, floors and furniture are covered, doors are sealed with sheeting against dust, and the room is cleaned down each evening. Old plaster is bagged and leaves with us. Outside, render repairs on a single storey wall come off a tower, and a full elevation gets a scaffold. If hacking off shows rotten lath, a failed lintel or damp coming from somewhere else, we stop, take a photo and put a price to you before carrying on.
Nothing done inside an ordinary house needs planning permission. Outside is where it changes. No conservation area covers Ridge, but the ones at Stoborough and Wareham are close by. Putting a render back like for like is maintenance, while a change of material, texture or colour may not be, and Planning Portal guidance on external walls explains the position. On a listed building, listed building consent reaches the inside too.
Cost
What decides the cost of plastering an older wall
We do not charge for plastering by the square metre. The background under the finish decides the price. Skim or strip. Sound plaster still gripping the wall takes a skim coat, which is the quick end. A blown wall has to come off, and that brings a backing coat and a float back into the job, then the skim on top.
Lath and lime. An old lath ceiling that has sagged is either reattached or taken down and replaced with plasterboard, and the choice changes the mess and the time. A solid wall with lime plaster on it wants lime back, which needs proper drying time between coats.
Outside, and the weather. Render on a south west elevation takes the driven rain, so cracks there usually mean more hollow render behind them. A tower does a low wall. A full elevation needs a scaffold, which is a priced line under the work at height rules, and re-rendering a whole wall can bring in Approved Document L, which may ask for insulation to be improved at the same time.
Making good. Sockets, switches, skirtings and architraves all come off and go back, and that is time too.
Ask anyone quoting whether they are skimming or stripping, what backing coat they are using, and whether the scaffold is in.
If it has started to move
A bowed ceiling or plaster coming away
Ring rather than use the form if a ceiling has started to bow, a lath ceiling is pulling off its joists, or a slab of render is hanging over a door or a path.
Keep people out of the room or away from under the wall, and do not push at it, because old plaster holds and then comes down all at once. If water is behind it, turn off the supply to that area. The first visit makes it safe by propping, taking down what is loose and sheeting outside, then the repair is priced. Ridge is a short run past Wareham for us. Scheduled jobs run Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. When it is urgent, ring, and should no one answer, we phone back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
The south-west elevation is the one that goes first
Ridge sits low and open on the edge of the harbour, and the weather here arrives from the south-west with nothing much in the way of it. Wind-driven rain does not fall on a wall, it is pushed at it, so one elevation of a house gets a great deal wetter than the other three and takes far longer to dry between showers.
That is why on a rendered house down this lane the same wall carries the map cracking, the green staining and the hollow panel while the sheltered side looks fine, and why a damp patch shows inside on that wall in a wet winter and vanishes in June. Do not judge the render by walking round the front. Look at the weather side, and tap it.
It changes the specification, not just the diagnosis. A rigid sand and cement render on an elevation that is repeatedly soaked and then dried will crack, and once water is behind it the cracks widen every winter. A mesh reinforced basecoat under a silicone topcoat stays flexible and sheds water instead of drinking it, which is why we put that on the exposed side even where the other elevations are left alone.
Inside, the same wall is the one where the plaster shows damp first, so the outside gets sorted before the room is replastered.
Who you are dealing with
A plasterer covering Ridge, Stoborough and Arne
From our base in Boscombe, towards Bournemouth, Ridge is 11.9 miles. We plaster and render across Ridge, Stoborough, Arne, Sandford and Wareham in BH20, and Dorset Council is the authority there. The limited company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, number 15471719, registered in England and Wales, and its owner is Thomas Hannen. Before you book a visit in Ridge, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
He is the one who taps your walls and writes the price. Checkatrade carries a verified customer's 10 out of 10 for us. The visit and the itemised written quote cost you nothing.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Ridge?
Most repairs in Ridge 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 Ridge |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Ridge. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Ridge, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Ridge. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Dorset National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about plastering in Ridge
Ridge is in a national landscape. Does render get scrutinised?
Anything visible does. Ridge falls inside the Dorset landscape designation, so where external work needs permission at all, the council looks harder at how it will read from the surrounding countryside than it would in a town. On an unlisted house a like for like re-render is still maintenance and needs nothing. It is a change of material, or a bright colour on an open elevation, that draws the attention.
Which wall should we do first if money is tight?
The south west facing one: that is the exposed elevation here, eight kilometres back from the coast but still taking the driven rain that comes in off the south west, and it fails years before the sheltered walls show anything at all. Wind and rain work at the edges, so look at corners, reveals and the run above lintels rather than the middle. Elevations are priced separately so one can be done now.
The listed buildings here are around Wareham. Are we affected?
Only where your own address is on the list. Very few listed entries sit in Ridge itself, as the Parish Church of Lady St Mary and its priory buildings are across the river in Wareham, and being near one places no restriction on what you do to an ordinary house nearby. Where a property is physically attached to a listed building it can be caught, so check with Dorset Council if there is any doubt before old plaster starts coming off.
Can render go on in the winter months here?
Not on the weather side of the house. Render wants a dry background going on and several days without driven rain to cure properly, and the south west elevation at Ridge rarely offers that between November and February. Frost is the other limit, because a base coat that freezes before it sets never gets its strength back. So we work the sheltered faces and the interior through winter and hold the exposed wall for spring.
Damp shows inside on that same wall. Is it the render?
Often it is. Where a wall takes driven rain off the south west and the render has cracked, water gets in behind the coating and cannot get back out, so damp appears inside on the opposite face and nowhere else in the house. Replastering the inside of that wall without fixing the outside is money wasted. The elevation gets looked at first, and the internal making good is priced once the outside is sorted.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering near Ridge
Nearby places we also cover for plastering, with straight-line distances from Ridge, and the other trades we offer in Ridge itself.
Plastering nearby
Our other trades in Ridge
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 Wareham Plastering, all areas Every area we cover
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Get a price for your plastering in Ridge
Tell us which room, or send a photo of the render, and we will book a look. The visit and the written quote cost nothing.