Plastering in Winfrith Newburgh
Plaster inside and render outside, across Winfrith Newburgh and the DT2 villages. We sound the wall before we price it, and the quote comes in writing.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
If the plaster is bulging or crumbling along the bottom of a wall in an older Winfrith Newburgh house, the wall itself is usually sound and the material stuck to it is wrong. The blown patch comes off, a backing coat goes on that lets the wall dry outwards again, and it gets skimmed once it is ready.
Three things bring people in this village to the phone. Plaster that sounds hollow under a knuckle for the first foot or two off the floor and rings solid above it. A ceiling that has cracked, dropped between the joists and started shedding dust on the carpet. Or a room that has been wet, from a burst pipe, a failed gutter or water off the meadow, and has dried out looking worse than it did on the day.
We come and sound every wall and ceiling in the room rather than only the one you rang about, and tell you which of the three you have. In this part of the Frome valley what is behind the surface is as often cob or flint rubble as it is brick, and that decides what we put back rather than what you would prefer.
The work
The hollow stops about waist height
Blown plaster on a solid wall. Tap along a wall in one of the older cottages here and you will usually find the hollow stops about waist height. A solid wall of cob, flint or soft brick has no cavity behind it and no damp proof course under it, and gets rid of ground water through its own face. The River Win runs within a few feet of the village and the low ground sits in flood zone 3, which is why the bottom of a wall here stays wet longer than people expect. Gypsum hardwall and a vinyl paint over it will be blown again inside two winters. We hack off only what has let go, brush the background back, then work in a haired lime backing coat and a breathable finish.
Lath and plaster ceilings. Above you in the old cottages is riven lath with the plaster squeezed through the gaps, and it is the nails and the key on the back of the lath that fail rather than the plaster you can see. That is the sag you notice from the doorway. If a third or more of the key has gone we take it down, board it and skim, a day for an ordinary bedroom. If it is sound and only tired we will say so and skim over it instead.
The houses built along the lane in the second half of the last century are ordinary gypsum on block, and want a skim rather than a strip, with dust sheets down and the background prepared, PVA where it is dusty. Where one has blown, the backing coat is floated to a rule, browning where the block pulls and bonding on a dense face. Textured artex ceilings from the same era take a skim once cleaned and stabilised, and we never sand or scrape one, because a coating of that age can contain asbestos. The barn and cart shed conversions round the edge of the village go on dot and dab where the blockwork is flat and dry, stud where it is not, then tape and joint or a full skim, with stop bead at each reveal, because deep reveals in a thick wall are where a poor job shows first.
An old wall here was rendered in lime, in a scratch coat, a render coat and a thin finish, and the sand and cement somebody put over the top of it in the seventies is what has cracked off in sheets and taken the face of the wall with it. We take that back and rebuild it breathable. On modern blockwork it is a primer, a mesh reinforced basecoat and a silicone thin coat, off a bell cast bead well clear of the damp course. The exposed elevation faces south west and the sea is under three miles off, so that wall takes the driven rain.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Permission, plainly. The quote is itemised: protection, hacking off, boarding, the backing coat, beads, finish and disposal on separate lines. Plaster inside is your business and nobody else's, and patching render like for like is repair. Two things change that here. The parish carries close to sixty listed entries, Winfrith House and the parish church among them, and on one of those listed building consent can reach the internal plaster as well as the front elevation. The old core of the village is also a conservation area, where putting render onto a wall that is bare stone today counts as a change of appearance rather than a repair. Re-render most of an elevation and Approved Document L brings building control in.
Cost
What decides the price
There is no useful rate per square metre: the square metres are the easiest thing to measure and the least useful thing to know. A cob wall under old lime, a flint and brick wall somebody skimmed in gypsum twenty years ago, and a post-war house with sound plaster on block are three different prices. Access matters as much: a thatched cottage on the street with nowhere to park, a converted farm building down a track, and a bungalow with a drive you can back a van onto. Outside, a tower does for low work and a gable wants a scaffold. Ask any quote what backing coat is going on, and who takes the waste.
If it has just gone
A ceiling down, or a wall soaked through
Ring rather than use the form. A ceiling that has cracked and dropped, plaster off a wall after a leak, or render that has come away from a gable goes to the front of the queue. We are about eighteen miles out along the A352, so we will normally have someone with you inside a day, and the same day when it is unsafe.
Worth knowing
Plaster that has been wet, and how long to leave it
The Win runs through the middle of this village and the low ground either side of it sits in flood zone 3, which you can check street by street on the government flood risk service. That matters to a plasterer more than it sounds. Gypsum that has been standing in water does not recover: it goes soft, it holds the damp against the wall behind it, and it comes back as a bloom of white salts through whatever you paint on it.
The tidemark on the wall is not the top of the damage either, because water wicks well above the line it left. So on a wall that has been wet we hack off to a good bit above the highest mark, take the skirtings and the beads off with it, and get air moving through the room before anything else is decided.
Then you wait, and the waiting is the part nobody wants to hear. A thick solid wall gives up its water at roughly an inch a month from each face, so a cottage wall that has been soaked is a season rather than a fortnight, and a modern cavity wall is far quicker. Replaster it too early and the new work blows, which is how a room ends up done twice.
When it is ready, a breathable lime backing coat lets the wall carry on drying through the new surface instead of trapping what is left, and salts come out into a sacrificial coat rather than through your paint. Finish with a thinned mist coat and a breathable mineral paint, not vinyl. We will tell you honestly when the wall is ready, and we would rather come back in the spring than take your money for work that will not last.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Winfrith Newburgh and the DT2 villages around it, East Knighton, Chaldon Herring, Owermoigne and Moreton, and east along the valley into Wool and Wareham. 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
Winfrith Newburgh questions we get asked
The Win runs past the garden. Does that affect the walls?
It puts the bottom of the wall at risk rather than the top. The watercourse here runs within a metre or so of property, and the village falls in flood zones 2 and 3, so ground water sits high after any wet spell. That shows up as blown plaster through the first half metre of a wall, salt crystals on the surface and paint lifting off. The wall has to dry and the source has to be dealt with before a new coat.
Can we put a coloured render on a house in the village?
Not without asking first. Winfrith Newburgh has its own conservation area, so how a building reads from the road is controlled, and colour is part of that. Recoating in the finish already there counts as repair. Going from bare stone or a limewash to a modern coloured system is a change of appearance and Dorset Council will want an application. We can price the like for like repair and the alternative so you can choose.
Winfrith House and the church are listed. Are cottages too?
Many are. There are 58 listed entries in this parish, which for a village of this size means a high proportion of the older buildings carry consent requirements. Listing reaches the interior, so a lath ceiling, a plaster cornice or an original lime wall inside a listed cottage cannot just be pulled out. It is a five minute check against the national list, and it decides whether the job is lime repair or ordinary replastering.
Which wall gives the most trouble on an exposed cottage?
The south west one. That is the exposed face here, four and a half kilometres in from the coast, so it takes the wind driven rain while the other elevations stay comparatively dry. Damage starts at the edges rather than in the middle, so window reveals, sills, the verge and the base of the wall break down while the main panel still looks sound. That elevation often gets priced on its own instead of all four.
How long does a wall have to dry before plastering?
Long enough to read dry through its depth, not merely at the face. On a solid wall that has been wet, that is usually months with heat and moving air, and a meter reading through the thickness settles it rather than how it looks. Given how high the water sits here after a wet winter, we would rather come back later than lay a coat that blows in six months. Dehumidifiers help; sealing the wall does not.
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Tell us the address and what you have noticed. We will come out, sound the walls, and put an itemised price in writing. No charge, and no obligation.