Plastering in Stourpaine
Lime render and lath ceilings on the old cottages, re-skims and dry lining on the newer houses, across Stourpaine, Durweston and the DT11 villages.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Plastering in Stourpaine divides neatly in two. Inside a modern house it is a skim and a coat of paint. On an old cob, chalk or flint wall the material matters more than the trowel work, and using the wrong one is what puts you back on the phone in two winters.
What brings people to ring is usually visible from the doorway. Render on the front of a cottage that has cracked, lifted or gone hollow where the rain drives in. A ceiling that has begun to sag and drop dust. A patch inside that keeps coming through the paint at skirting level. Or a room stripped for decorating that turns out to need a lot more than filler.
We come and tap the surface, look at what is behind it and at what is happening outside the same wall, and then say which of those you are dealing with. It is eighteen miles up the valley from us, so we come out prepared to look properly rather than to glance at it from the gate.
The work
The rain comes off the downs and finds the same spots
The rain comes off the downs and finds the same spots. The village sits under the downs and the weather comes across them, so render fails in the same places again and again: the head and sill of a window, the base of the wall below a leaking gutter, and the corner of the elevation that faces the wind. We deal with the water first, then the render, in that order.
The older cottages are solid walled and soft, finished in a lime render. They fail where somebody has patched them in sand and cement or sealed them with a plastic masonry paint, because the wall then holds water it used to give back. We cut out the hard patches, put on a lime scratch coat and float coat and finish to match what is already there rather than what is quickest. Inside those same cottages it is lime plaster on the solid walls and haired lime on lath ceilings. We are honest about what flat means in a building like this: a three hundred year old wall can be made true enough to hang a picture on and take paint evenly, but straightening it completely means losing the character you paid for. A cracked ceiling that is still firm gets overboarded and skimmed. One that moves under your hand has lost its keys and comes down, then goes back in board, tape and joint and a skim.
The post-war and later houses take ordinary gypsum work: a re-skim, hacking off and re-backing with bonding or hardwall where a wall has blown, and dry lining on dabs or studs in a converted garage. Where an extension is blockwork, a mesh reinforced basecoat with a bell cast bead and a silicone thin coat topcoat is the right system. It has no business on the old part of the house, and we will say so before you order it rather than after.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from the first visit to the last coat, one person to ring, and none of it sub-contracted. The quote is itemised: prep, anything hacked off, the backing coat, the beads, the skim, making good and disposal on separate lines. Outside is a different matter here, because the middle of the village is a conservation area and there are twenty-six listed entries in the parish, so a change of external finish can need planning permission and listed building consent is needed whether the work is inside or out. Dorset Council holds both records. Re-rendering a complete elevation is a building control matter, because Approved Document L treats the wall as a renovated thermal element.
Cost
What decides the price of a plastering job
No rate per square metre, because what sits behind the surface decides it. A cob cottage under lime render, a flint and brick cottage with lath ceilings, and a post-war bungalow with hardwall on blockwork 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 up here the weather sets the programme, because each coat has to take up before the next.
If it has come down
Plaster blown or a ceiling down today
Ring rather than use the form. A ceiling that has started to sag, or plaster blown off a wall after a leak, goes to the front of the queue. Keep out of the room and turn the circuit off at the consumer unit rather than the switch. If a lath ceiling has started to move we would rather look at it today than price it next week, even at eighteen miles.
Worth knowing
What the conservation area changes about the outside
The heart of Stourpaine is a conservation area, and that matters on the outside of the building rather than the inside. Repairing and matching what is already on the wall counts as maintenance.
Changing it does not always: taking a soft colourwashed lime render off and putting a modern thin coat system on, or painting an elevation that has never been painted, changes how the building reads in the street, and in a conservation area that is exactly what the council is there to look at. If the cottage is listed, consent reaches indoors too, so stripping historic lime plaster or taking down a lath ceiling should be checked before anyone starts.
There is a practical reason to work with that rather than round it. The soft lime finish is also what keeps these walls dry, so the conservation answer and the building answer are usually the same answer. Two things follow. First, we make up a sample panel and let you and the council see the colour and the texture against the existing before the whole elevation goes on.
Second, lime work is weather dependent: it needs frost free conditions and time between coats, so external work here is planned for spring through to early autumn rather than squeezed into December. If you want the front of the cottage done next year, the conversation is worth having this year.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Stourpaine and the DT11 addresses around it, out through Durweston, Pimperne, Shroton, Bryanston and Blandford Forum, under Dorset 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.
Questions
Stourpaine questions we get asked
Does Stourpaine's conservation area apply to the back of the house?
It applies to the building, not only the elevation you see from the road. Stourpaine Conservation Area covers the village, so a change of external finish on a rear wall is still a change even if nobody but you ever looks at it. In practice the council takes most interest in what is publicly visible, which is why like-for-like repair round the back rarely causes trouble and a new coating on the front often does.
Is a cottage near the Church of St Nicholas likely listed?
It might be, and standing near the church does not settle it either way. Stourpaine has 26 listed entries running from the Church of St Nicholas to Durweston Bridge, and listing follows the individual building rather than the street it sits on. If yours is listed, internal plaster is covered and taking it off needs consent first. If it is not, the conservation area still controls the outside and leaves the inside to you.
What order do you work in on a whole cottage?
Roof and gutters first, then the outside coats, then anything internal. There is no sense putting a finish on a wall while water is still getting into it from above, and in a conservation area the external side often needs its own conversation with Dorset Council, which takes longer than the plastering ever does. So we settle the permissions and the water, then book the wet trades. That order goes in the quote rather than being worked out later.
What happens if it rains halfway through the outside coats?
We sheet the scaffold and stop for the day. A render coat that gets rained on before it has taken up will craze, and on an eighteen mile run out to Stourpaine we would rather lose a day than come back to it in the spring. An undercoat can sit under sheeting safely for a while, so the sequence is not wasted. Dates move rather than the work being pushed on regardless of what is coming over.
Who actually turns up, and who prices the job?
Thomas Hannen comes out to look and price it himself, so the person quoting is the person who has to make it work. The firm is Bournemouth Roofing and Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and both the site visit and the written itemised quote are free. On a village job eighteen miles out he will want to see it once in person rather than working from photographs.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering and rendering near Stourpaine
Plastering and rendering nearby
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Get the render or the ceiling looked at before next winter
We will tell you what is failing and why, show you a sample where the finish has to match, and give you a free written itemised price.