Plastering in Walhampton and Portmore

Lath ceilings in the cottages. Along the lanes at Portmore, Pilley and Mount Pleasant you meet ceilings that are lime plaster pushed through riven lath, and the question is never the crack you can see. It is whether the keys curled over the tops of the laths have snapped off.

We put a head into the loft or the room above and look at them from behind. Where they have gone the ceiling comes down and goes back on board or on lime. Where they are holding, scrim, a patch and a skim is honest work and far cheaper.

Solid walls, and why they want lime. Better than a quarter of the homes in Walhampton and Portmore went up before the First World War, so those are solid wall with no cavity behind them. A wall like that takes a little rain in outside and dries back out again, and everything you put on it has to stay breathable. Where the plaster has parted from the brick, the loose work comes off back to a clean background and a lime backing coat goes on before any finish. There is real water in a floated wall and it has to leave through the room, so this is the job that takes a room out of use rather than a skim. A hard gypsum skim over a wall still carrying water is the commonest reason a new finish fails, and if a wall drums under a knuckle we tell you so, even when a quick skim would be the easier money.

Walhampton and Portmore is mostly cottages and larger houses, with few flats. If yours is a flat, inside your own rooms the plastering is yours to instruct, but the outside of the building, render included, usually belongs to the freeholder and is managed out of the service charge, so it is worth knowing which of the two you are ringing about before anyone gets quotes. In the post-war houses and the flats the walls are board on stud in the partitions, dabs on the outside walls of the newer ones, taped joints and a fair amount of swirled artex overhead. Where the background holds we prepare it, seal it with thinned PVA or a bonding primer depending on what is already there, then run two passes of finish coat off the trowel.

Brick stables, cart sheds and garden rooms around Walhampton and Portmore are steadily becoming living space. Board on dabs or on a stud, moisture resistant board behind a shower, insulated board where a cold wall is coming inside, then tape and joint or a full skim over the lot, with angle bead on every external corner and stop bead at each reveal.

The coast is under three miles from here and the exposed elevation faces south west, so salt-laden air keeps a seaward wall damp between showers and rusts anything ferrous inside the render, and a rigid sand and cement render on a wall that moves will hairline crack. Outside the backing is a render coat rather than plaster: a scratch coat or basecoat with mesh bedded through it, a primer, then a silicone thin coat, a monocouche or a K render topcoat, with a bell cast bead at the bottom so water drips clear of the wall instead of running down into it. For the outside walls, see rendering in Walhampton and Portmore.

We do not quote per square metre. Each wall and ceiling is sounded with a knuckle first, because the split between skimming and hacking back to brick moves the price more than the size of the room.

The building. A Georgian or Victorian house on the Lymington side, an older cottage at Portmore and a post-war house each have a different background. Solid walls in lime plaster take lime repairs; newer blockwork takes plasterboard and a skim.

Getting materials in. A first floor flat whose stair will not take a full sheet, a cottage room that cannot be emptied and a house with nowhere to park all add time. Anything above porch height needs scaffold, priced on its own because the work at height rules decide the platform, not the budget.

Ceilings. A sagging lath and plaster ceiling may be pinned and patched, or taken down and boarded. Taking it down is filthy work and adds disposal.

Drying time. Lime needs longer between coats than gypsum, so a lime job runs over more days.

Ask other plasterers whether they plan lime or gypsum for the old walls, how much hacking off they have allowed, and whether making good and waste are included.

We cover Walhampton, Portmore and the lanes around Boldre and Pilley, across to Lymington, Sway and Brockenhurst. That is 13.7 miles from our base, and the planning authority for this address is the National Park.

The business trades as Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, number 15471719. Thomas Hannen owns it, taps the walls and writes the price himself. On Checkatrade you will see a 10 out of 10 left by a verified customer. There is no fee for the visit, and the itemised quote comes in writing at no cost. Before you book a visit in Walhampton and Portmore, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Walhampton and Portmore 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.