Plastering in Sandleheath
Skimming, ceilings, lime repairs, damp work and external render for both halves of the village.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Before we price anything in Sandleheath we work out which kind of house you are in, because the village has two and they take different plaster. In the older cottages the walls are solid, with no cavity, and they need a breathable lime finish. In the post-war and modern half they are gypsum on block or plasterboard, and an ordinary skim is the answer. Put the modern material on the old wall and it blows off again, which is the commonest way a plaster repair on an old wall fails.
A Sandleheath room wants a plasterer when it has been papered and painted over tired plaster too many times and needs skimming flat, when a textured ceiling has begun to crack along the board joints, or after damage: a patch of wall soft and powdery after a leak, or blowing off at skirting height with a white bloom on it.
We take on the inside and the outside, and the making good afterwards is part of it. The site visit is free, the written quote is itemised, and if the honest answer is a morning of patching rather than a room of new plaster, that is what it will say.
The work
Find the water before anything gets mixed
Find the water before anything gets mixed. Plaster blowing in the first half-metre above the floor with salts showing through the paint is being fed by water, and it is very common here.
We look for where it is coming from before anything is mixed: ground and path levels raised above the damp proof course, a hard cement skirt of render at the base of an old wall, a blocked gully. Once that is dealt with and the wall has dried, the repair is a breathable lime replastering on an old wall, or a backing coat and skim on a modern one. For the outside walls, see rendering in Sandleheath.
A fifth of the houses in the village predate 1919. Behind the paper you find lime plaster laid on riven lath, and outside a soft render or limewash over brick. That fabric has to stay breathable, so what goes back is a haired lime backing coat and a fine finish, given proper drying time between coats. Outside, the traditional job is scratch coat then render coat and float in a mix soft enough to move with the wall.
Where the background is sound we seal it and lay on two coats of finish. An ordinary bedroom is a day. Where a wall has blown it comes off back to the brick or block and a backing coat goes on first, browning or hardwall on solid work and bonding where the background is a patchwork of brick, block and old infill. The ceilings in the fifties to early eighties houses are plasterboard with scrimmed joints, very often with a textured coating over the top: shallow patterns get skimmed over, heavy ones are over-boarded and taped, and anything from before 2000 is sampled rather than sanded.
Plots here are generous, so building on is often easier than moving. Extensions, annexes and garage conversions are dry lining on dot and dab where there is blockwork to fix to, board on stud where there is not, then tape and joint or a full skim, with angle bead on every external corner and stop bead at each reveal. Outside, the pebbledash and roughcast on the post-war houses is nearly all sand and cement, which sounds hollow once water is behind it. Local damage is cut out square and patched in a matching mix. Where an elevation has largely gone we strip it and put back a thin coat silicone system: primer, a mesh reinforced basecoat, then a coloured topcoat, with a bell cast bead at the base.
How it runs
Plastering an older Sandleheath house in lime or gypsum
Thomas taps the walls and ceilings with a knuckle and checks them with a damp meter, because the diagnosis is done by sound and reading, not by eye. On a pre-1900 cottage that often means lath ceilings and lime plaster on solid walls. On a post-war semi it is more likely gypsum on block or brick. The written quote lists protection, hacking off, backing coat, skim, beads and making good separately. All of it comes from one company.
Floors and furniture are covered, doors sheeted against dust, and the room cleaned each evening. Old plaster is bagged and taken away. If hacking off shows rotten lath, a failed lintel or damp from elsewhere, you get a picture and a cost before we go any further.
Inside an ordinary house, nothing needs permission. No conservation area covers Sandleheath and the parish has two listed entries, so for most addresses the outside finish is your choice as well, and Planning Portal guidance on external walls explains where that stops. Fordingbridge, a little over a kilometre away, does have one, so if you are unsure about your address, other permissions you may need is the place to check.
Cost
What decides the price of plastering solid or cavity walls
A flat square-metre rate does not fit plastering. The background decides the price. Skim or strip. A skim coat over sound plaster is the quick end. A blown wall comes off, bringing a backing coat and a float coat back in before the skim.
Lime on solid walls. A pre-1900 solid wall needs to breathe. Lime plaster lets it, while a gypsum or cement backing traps damp and blows. Lime needs real drying time between coats, so the job is slower, though the material is not much dearer.
Lath ceilings. A sagging lath ceiling can sometimes be reattached. If it has gone too far, it comes down and is replaced with plasterboard and a skim, which is messier and takes longer.
Fittings. Skirtings, sockets and door linings are taken off and refitted, and on an old cottage the original skirting may split coming off, so that is allowed for.
Outside. A full elevation needs a scaffold, which is a priced line under the work at height rules, and re-rendering a whole wall counts as renovating a thermal element, so Approved Document L may ask for insulation to be improved.
Ask any quote whether they are skimming or stripping, what backing coat they will use on a solid wall, and whether the scaffold is in.
If it has started to come down
A lath ceiling sagging or plaster coming off in sheets
Ring rather than use the form if a ceiling has started to bow, a lath ceiling is pulling away from its joists, or plaster is coming off a wall in sheets. Keep everyone out of the room and do not push at it, because old lath can hang on for weeks and then drop in one go.
If a leak is behind it, turn the water off. The first visit makes it safe with props or by taking down what is loose, then the repair is priced. When you ring, say how much has already come down and which room it is in. Scheduled jobs run Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If the call rings out, we come back to you as soon as possible.
Worth knowing
Two kinds of wall in one village, and it matters which you have
A fifth of Sandleheath predates 1919 and most of the rest went up after the war, so the village runs two entirely different building systems side by side and the same symptom means different things in each. In an old cottage the wall is solid brick with no cavity. It gets wet from outside and from the ground and it is supposed to dry back out through its own surface, so the plaster on it has to let moisture through.
In a post-war or modern house the wall is a cavity with an outer skin, an air gap and an inner block, and the plaster is only ever a finish. Damp plaster in the first house is often the wall doing its job badly; in the second it means something has actually broken.
What that changes for you is the question to ask when someone quotes. On a solid wall, a gypsum skim, a cement backing coat or a waterproof render at the base will hold the moisture in, push it sideways and upwards, and blow the new plaster off within a winter or two, and it takes the face of the old brick with it when it goes. The right answer is lime, and lime needs waiting time built into the programme.
On a modern cavity wall gypsum is entirely correct and lime would be a waste of your money. So the first thing to establish is not the finish, it is the wall. If the person pricing your job has not tapped it, looked at the thickness at a window reveal, or asked how old the house is, they are guessing, and it is your wall that pays for the guess.
Who you are dealing with
A plasterer for Sandleheath, Alderholt and Damerham
We plaster in Sandleheath, Fordingbridge, Alderholt and Damerham across SP6, and work across the New Forest, east Dorset and the coast from our base at 80a Wolverton Road in Boscombe, near Bournemouth. Sandleheath is 14 miles from it, and New Forest District Council is the authority.
You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. The business belongs to Thomas Hannen, and he taps your walls and prices the work himself. Checkatrade has a verified customer's 10 out of 10 on it. The visit and the itemised quote are both free. Before you book a visit in Sandleheath, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Sandleheath?
Most repairs in Sandleheath 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 Sandleheath |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest District Council is the planning authority for Sandleheath. The National Park boundary runs close by, and the Park's property map shows which side an address falls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Sandleheath, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, Sandleheath has listed buildings. If yours is one, or stands in the grounds of one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Sandleheath. |
Questions
Questions about plastering in Sandleheath
Sandleheath has no conservation area. Are we free to alter?
On an ordinary house, generally yes. There is no conservation area over Sandleheath, unlike Fordingbridge, which has one of its own, so an unlisted house has no appearance control and internal replastering needs no consent from anyone. A few buildings in the parish are listed, so check the Historic England list for your own address before old plaster comes off.
What still governs the job is the wall itself. A pre-1900 solid wall has to be treated as a solid wall whether or not anyone is watching, because a cement backing on it will blow.
One in five houses here is pre-1900. Is mine?
Roughly a fifth of Sandleheath predates 1919 and the largest single band is pre-1900, so it is a fair bet on the older lanes and unlikely on the later estates. The tell is the wall thickness at a window reveal and whether the ceiling flexes when you push it. Solid brick with a deep reveal and a springy ceiling means lath and lime, and that changes the backing coat we mix and the time it takes to dry.
Why put lime back instead of a cement backing coat?
Because a solid wall gets rid of its moisture through the plaster. On the older Sandleheath stock there is no cavity, so rain and ground moisture move into the wall and have to leave through the inside face. Lime lets that happen and moves a little without cracking. Cement seals it, the damp then finds the next weak point, and you get a blown patch a foot higher up the following winter.
How long does a lime backing coat need before skimming?
Longer than gypsum, and the wall sets the pace, not the calendar. A lime backing coat wants roughly a week for each coat before the next one goes on, and on a thick Sandleheath cottage wall that means two visits with a gap between them instead of one continuous week. We leave it ventilated and unheated in between. Rush it and you trap water behind the finish, then read the map of it through the paint.
Where will you park and mix on a detached property?
Close to the door, on the hard standing if there is one. Getting on for three in ten homes in Sandleheath are detached, which usually means room for the van beside the house and a dry spot for the mixer and the boards. That saves carrying plasterboard through your living room. Where there is no drive I bring smaller boards and more of them rather than dragging full sheets down a shared path.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering near Sandleheath
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Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Hollow-sounding wall: blown plaster or dot and dabEverything we do in Verwood Plastering, all areas Every area we cover
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Tell us which room, or send a photo of the wall, and we will book a look. The visit and the written quote cost nothing.