Plastering in Sopley

Filler along a straight crack is a six month fix. Three quarters of the housing here went up between 1945 and 1982, with the peak in the seventies and early eighties, and on those houses the ceilings are plasterboard with a thin skim or a textured coating over the top. They crack in straight lines along the board joints as the house moves, and filler along a crack like that is a six month fix. We scrim and skim the whole ceiling instead, or overboard it where the old board has sagged between the joists, and it goes flat and stays flat.

Houses of this vintage went up with a browning or hardwall backing coat on blockwork downstairs and board upstairs. Where a wall has been wet, or where a fixing has been hammered about, the backing loses its grip on the block and the whole patch sounds hollow when you tap it. That comes off back to the block, gets a new backing coat and a fresh finish coat, rather than a skim laid over a wall that is already letting go.

A shower tray, a failed seal or a slipped overflow shows up as a stained, soft patch on the ceiling below. We take out what is wet rather than skim over it, let it dry, then patch or re-board and skim so the repair does not read as a rectangle through the paint. Nearly half the homes here are terraced, so the mixer and the waste both come back through the house, and hacking off on a shared wall is felt next door, which is worth telling the neighbour rather than leaving them to find out.

Garage conversions and knock-throughs. There are a lot of integral garages on the estates around here and they nearly all become a room in the end. That is dry lining rather than wet plaster: insulated plasterboard on dabs or on a stud, tape and joint or a full skim over the board, and a proper angle bead on every corner and reveal so the new opening looks like it was always there.

Down by the church and along the lane there are cob and brick cottages with solid walls and lath ceilings, twenty-six listed entries among them. Those want lime plaster and a breathable finish, not gypsum. A cottage wall that was skimmed hard ten years ago and now has a damp shadow at skirting level is usually telling you the wall cannot dry through its own face. Outside, the exposed elevation faces southwest, so the wind and driven rain work at the openings and the edges rather than the middle of a wall, and that is where pebbledash and render crack or go hollow. Those get patched into the existing where the rest is sound, or taken back and rebuilt with a scratch coat, a mesh reinforced basecoat, a bell cast bead and a silicone thin coat. Thin coat systems suit blockwork; a solid old wall takes lime render instead.

No rate per square metre, because what sits behind the surface decides it. A seventies terrace with browning on block, a converted garage lined out on studs, and a cob cottage on lath and lime are three different jobs before anyone lifts a trowel. We tap the old surface before quoting, because anything hollow is already blown. Reveals, chimney breasts and staircases are where the hours go, since each is a bead cut, fixed and floated true. External render wants a tower or a scaffold, and each coat has to take up before the next, so the weather sets the programme.

We cover Sopley and the BH23 addresses around it, out through Winkton, Burton, Bransgore, Ripley and Neacroft, with planning and building control under New Forest District Council. 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.