Plastering in Tarrant Monkton
Lime on the old walls, gypsum on the newer ones, and a written price that tells you which one your house is.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Two houses a few doors apart in Tarrant Monkton can want completely different work. An old solid wall wants lime, because it gets rid of water through its own surface. A later one takes a gypsum backing coat and a skim. We sound the wall before we price it and tell you which of the two you have.
Plaster in Tarrant Monkton nearly always gives way overhead, low on a wall, or outside. A ceiling has cracked or begun to sag, usually an old lath one losing its grip on the joists. A patch of wall has gone soft or come away behind the wallpaper, most often low down on an outside wall or in a cold corner. Or the render outside has hairline cracked, sounds hollow in a patch, and water is sitting behind it instead of running off.
What we do about it has the same shape every time. We knock every wall and ceiling in question, work out what is behind it, and separate what only wants a finish coat from what has to come off. Both go on one written price with the making good included, so nothing appears later as an extra. The site visit and the quote are free.
The work
Rooms here are priced by the corner, not the wall
Rooms here are priced by the corner, not the wall. Old houses in this valley are short of straight lines, and that is where the hours go.
An angle bead sets an external corner, a stop bead finishes plaster where it meets timber or dies into a reveal, and a deep reveal in a thick wall has to be run by eye so it looks right rather than measured so it reads wrong. Rooms with beams, sloping ceilings and out-of-square openings are priced by the corner rather than by the wall.
The old houses in Tarrant Monkton are solid wall construction, finished in lime plaster, usually a render coat, a float coat and a fine finish over the top. Put gypsum or a cement backing coat on one and the finish blows above the skirting inside two winters. We keep the build-up breathable and take material off only where it has genuinely parted from the wall. An old ceiling here is lime pushed through riven lath, hanging on the nibs that squeezed out above it, and when those break it sags between the joists. If most of the key is still holding it can be stabilised and skimmed. If it is on the move it comes down, and then you choose: plasterboard fixed to the joists and skimmed, which is quicker, or re-lathing to keep the fabric, which is what a protected ceiling usually needs.
Not everything in Tarrant Monkton is old. On the twentieth century houses the backing coat is gypsum: bonding where the face is dense or painted, browning or hardwall where it is absorbent. Newer rooms and outbuilding conversions are dry lining, board on dabs or on a stud, joints taped, then a skim. Outside, an old wall takes lime render finished with limewash or a mineral paint, and a modern one a scratch coat, a mesh reinforced basecoat, a primer and a silicone topcoat, with a bell cast bead at the bottom.
How it runs
How a plastering job runs, room by room
Thomas comes to the house, taps the walls to find where the plaster has blown, and looks at the ceilings. He prices it himself, and the stripping, boarding and skimming all sit on that one quote.
The quote sets out protection, hacking off, any plasterboard, bonding or lime backing coats, beads, the skim, and disposal on separate lines. In a cottage off the village street every bag of plaster and rubble goes through the house, so floors are boarded and sheeted, the room is closed off with dust sheets, and the debris goes out as it comes down.
If lath comes away with an old ceiling, or a wall is wet behind the plaster, we take a picture, give you the extra cost, and only then carry on.
Repairing render in the same material is maintenance. Rendering a wall that is bare now is where Planning Portal guidance on external walls matters. The village is in the Tarrant Valley Conservation Area (Tarrant Monkton), so before changing the outside finish on an unlisted house, confirm with the council what applies. The parish counts twenty seven listed entries, and on those listed building consent covers internal plaster as well as outside render. Where most of an elevation is stripped, Approved Document L asks whether the wall should be insulated.
Cost
What makes one wall a quick skim and another a day
Skim or strip is the first question. If the old plaster is sound and just tired, a skim coat over it is a short job. If the backing coat has come loose from the wall behind, it all has to be hacked off to bare masonry and rebuilt in layers, which can turn a day into three.
Lime or gypsum. Old solid walls of brick, flint or cob need to breathe, so they take a lime plaster. Gypsum on those walls holds damp against them, and it shows as blown patches within a few winters. Lime is applied thinner, in more coats, with drying time between each, and the price reflects that.
Corners and openings. Deep window reveals, a chimney breast and a ceiling that slopes under the eaves all need angle bead and patience. A plain square room is quicker.
Ceilings. Sagging lath and plaster can sometimes be pinned back. If it cannot, it comes down and is replaced with plasterboard or new lath, and that is a messy day.
Getting the material in. Where there is no parking by the door, bags and boards go in by hand. Outside work needs a tower or scaffold, which is a separate line.
Worth asking any other quote: is the old plaster being hacked off or skimmed over? Is it lime or gypsum, and why? Is making good around sockets and skirting included?
If it has come down
Ceiling sagging or plaster falling off
Phone rather than filling in the form. If a ceiling has cracked and started to sag, plaster is peeling off in sheets, or a damp patch is growing across a wall, it needs looking at soon.
Where a ceiling is bellied with water, keep everyone out of the room and switch off the lights on that circuit. Do not poke it. The first visit makes the room safe, brings down what is loose and traces the water, which is often a roof or pipe fault that has to be fixed first. Then Thomas prices the plastering. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If the line is busy, you will hear back from us as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Plastic paint traps the damp in an old wall, inside and out
If your house is rendered and that render is lime, the paint matters more than the render does. Modern plastic masonry paint dries as a film. The wall carries on taking water in at the joints and off the ground, the film will not let it back out, and it collects behind the paint until the face lifts off in sheets.
Indoors it is the same story: vinyl emulsion on lime plaster holds the damp in, and the plaster behind it turns to powder.
People blame the render, strip it, and pay for the whole thing twice. Limewash and the mineral paints are porous on purpose: the wall dries through them, they wear thin instead of peeling, and they can be washed over again without stripping. If you are being quoted for a rendered elevation on an old house here, ask what is going on top before you agree the figure. For the outside walls, see rendering in Tarrant Monkton.
The same thinking decides what you are allowed to do. In a conservation area, putting back what is there in the material that is there counts as repair. Changing the material, or rendering a wall that is bare now, is a change of appearance and needs consent, and colour is part of what gets looked at on a street like this one. Settle that before the tower goes up, because it changes the specification, the drying time and the order the work runs in.
Who you are dealing with
A plasterer you can look up before you ring
Tarrant Monkton is about fifteen miles from our base in Boscombe. We cover it with the other Tarrant villages and the DT11 addresses around Blandford, and Dorset Council handles planning and building control.
The company you deal with is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and it belongs to Thomas Hannen, who comes out to tap the walls and price the work himself. On Checkatrade, one verified customer rated us 10 out of 10. There is nothing to pay for the visit, or for the written quote with every room itemised. Before you book a visit in Tarrant Monkton, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Tarrant Monkton?
Most repairs in Tarrant Monkton 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 Tarrant Monkton |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Tarrant Monkton. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Tarrant Valley Conservation Area (Tarrant Monkton). Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Tarrant Monkton. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Cranborne Chase & West Wiltshire Downs National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about plastering in Tarrant Monkton
Which conservation area covers Tarrant Monkton, and what does it control?
The Tarrant Valley Conservation Area, and it controls appearance, not what you do indoors. Putting back the same external render in the same finish reads as maintenance. Swapping it for a different material, or changing the colour, is an alteration and goes to Dorset Council first. Internal replastering in an unlisted house in Tarrant Monkton needs nobody's permission at all, so a re-skim can be booked the week you decide on it.
How do we find out if our cottage is listed?
The national list is searchable by address and it takes a couple of minutes. Tarrant Monkton has 27 listed entries including the Church of All Saints, which is a lot for a village of this size, so it is genuinely worth looking instead of assuming. A listing covers the whole building inside and out, so historic plaster and lath fall under it. I will not strip a listed interior without seeing the consent.
We are on the edge of Cranborne Chase. Does that count?
It adds a second layer of scrutiny to anything visible. Tarrant Monkton sits inside the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs designation as well as its own conservation area, so a change to the outside of the building gets judged against both at once. Neither of them stops repair. Both make a like-for-like specification the easier route, which is what I would put on an old wall in any case.
How long will an old cottage need between the coats?
Longer than a modern room, because every coat has to dry before the next one goes on. On a solid village wall we put the backing coat on, leave it to firm up and shrink, then come back once it has, never rushing the next coat. A cottage in the Tarrant valley usually means two or three visits with gaps rather than one continuous run, and those gaps are the part that stops it cracking a year later.
Where does the waste go from a village job like this?
Out on the van, the same day where we can manage it. There is often nowhere to stand a skip on a Tarrant Monkton lane without blocking it, and in a conservation area a skip parked outside for a fortnight is the sort of thing neighbours notice, so we bag the spoil and take it with us. Old lime plaster and lath is bulky and heavy, so a cottage ceiling can be two or three loads.
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Get your Tarrant Monkton walls sounded first
A free site visit, every wall and ceiling knocked rather than glanced at, and an itemised written quote that keeps a skim and a full replaster apart.