Plastering in Winterborne Kingston
Skimming, replastering, ceilings and external render across Winterborne Kingston and the DT11 villages. We tap the wall before we price it.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most calls from Winterborne Kingston are one of two jobs. Either a room needs skimming flat over plaster that is still sound, which is a day or so and no mess to speak of, or the render outside has started to crack and sound hollow, which wants cutting back to something solid before anything new goes on it.
People here tend to ring about one of three things. A room that has been papered over so many times it has lost its face, and wants skimming before a decorator will touch it. A ceiling that has cracked along the board joints, or worse, come away and started to bow.
Or a rendered elevation that rings hollow when you tap it and has a crack running down from the corner of a window. We come out, sound the walls and ceilings in the rooms you are worried about and tap the render right across the wall rather than at the crack, then tell you which of those you have and what it will take. Nothing is priced from the doorway.
The work
Two different jobs live under the word ceiling
Skimming and making good. The commonest job in the village by a distance. Walls in the post-war houses along the street are gypsum on brick or block, and once the paper comes off they are sound but tired. Covers down, a clean, PVA where the background is dusty, then two passes of finish coat. A single room is a day. We will happily talk you out of a full replaster where a skim will do.
Two different jobs live under the word ceiling here. In the newer houses it is plasterboard with scrim tape over the joints, and the hairline crack tracking the board line comes right with a skim. In the older cottages it is lath with the plaster pushed through the back of it, and when that lets go the ceiling bellies down between the joists. If most of the key has snapped off we take it down, board it and skim, a day for a bedroom.
Old solid walls. The cottages around the Church of St Nicholas are cob and brick, solid through, with no cavity and no damp proof course, and shed water through their own face. This is low ground with the North Winterbourne a stone's throw from the street and flood zone 3 over it, so the foot of a wall here stays damp. Where gypsum hardwall has been used on one it is usually blown at the bottom and hollow to a knuckle. We hack off what has let go, then put back a haired lime backing coat and a breathable finish.
This is arable country and a good few buildings behind the houses have become annexes and workshops: dry lining on dabs where the blockwork is flat and dry, stud where it is not. Outside, we repair a good deal more render than we replace, cutting out to sound material with a mesh basecoat and a topcoat matched to what is there.
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. No conservation area covers this village and the listed entries run to a handful, the parish church among them, so a house that is neither listed nor on designated land can normally be rendered under permitted development, and Planning Portal guidance on external walls sets out where that stops. On a listed building it is different, and listed building consent can reach the internal plaster as well as the front wall. 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 wall of cob and brick under old lime, a ceiling somebody has already overboarded once, and a bedroom wall of sound gypsum are three different prices inside one house. Access matters as much: a cottage with its front door straight onto the street, a converted farm building out on the edge of the fields, and a bungalow with a drive you can back a van onto. Ask any quote what backing coat is going on, and who takes the waste.
If it has just gone
Render off a wall, or a ceiling that has dropped
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 fifteen miles out through Bere Regis, so we will normally have someone with you inside a day, and the same day when it is unsafe.
Worth knowing
Why render cracks on this valley, and what we put back
The weather that does the damage here comes up the open valley from the south west, and it arrives as driven rain on the same elevation year after year. A wall that gets soaked, dries out and gets soaked again is a wall that moves, slightly, all the time. Sand and cement render is strong and completely rigid, so it does not move with the wall, it cracks instead.
The crack lets water in behind the render, the water cannot get out through a cement face, and the next hard frost pushes the whole panel off the wall. That is why a rendered elevation on this side of a house is nearly always hollow around the openings first, and why tapping only at the crack tells you almost nothing. We tap the whole wall.
What goes back depends on what is underneath, and it is worth knowing before you take a price. On modern blockwork we use a system rather than a mix: a primer to even out the suction, a mesh reinforced basecoat that spreads movement across the wall instead of letting it concentrate at a window corner, then a silicone thin coat topcoat of the K Render sort, or a through coloured monocouche if you would rather never paint the wall again.
It starts off a bell cast bead well clear of the damp course so water drips away rather than tracking back. On a genuinely old cob or brick wall none of that belongs, and the answer is lime in a scratch coat, a render coat and a thin finish. Planning Portal guidance on external walls is worth ten minutes of your time if you are thinking about changing the finish rather than repairing it.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Winterborne Kingston and the DT11 villages, Bere Regis, Milborne St Andrew, Winterborne Whitechurch and Anderson, and north up the road into Blandford Forum. 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
Winterborne Kingston questions we get asked
Why is the damp worse here in February than August?
Because the water table rises with the winter stream. The North Winterbourne runs within about seventy metres of property here and fills seasonally, and the village sits in flood zones 2 and 3 with a high surface water rating on top of that. A wall reading dry in late summer can be wet at its base by February. It is why damp readings get taken in the wet part of the year rather than trusting a summer one.
We are well inland. Is render still a problem here?
Different problem, same wall. At nearly eighteen kilometres from the coast salt is not the driver, so beads and metal fixings last better than they do on the shore. What you get instead is frost. Water sits in a cracked sand and cement render, freezes overnight and pushes the coat off the wall in plates. An inland village cools further overnight than the coast does. Getting cracks closed before autumn is the easy half of the job.
Is there anything stopping us rendering here?
For most houses, no. Winterborne Kingston has no conservation area of its own and seven listed entries, the Church of St Nicholas among them, so the appearance controls that bite in the designated villages nearby do not apply to an ordinary house here. Rendering or recoating an unlisted house outside a conservation area is normally permitted development. Dorset Council is the authority if you want that confirmed in writing before anything starts.
Will a patched section of render show against the old?
For a while, yes. New render cures to a different colour and takes several months of weather to settle towards the surrounding wall, and it will never be an exact match against a surface that has been out in the open that long. Where the finish matters, the usual answer is to patch, let it cure, then coat the whole elevation in one go. On a rear wall or a gable most people live with the patch.
You are a fair way out. Do you still come here?
Yes. Winterborne Kingston is about fifteen miles from base and we cover it, though for small repair work we will normally tie the visit in with other jobs running in the DT11 postcodes rather than making a single trip out. The look and the written itemised quote cost nothing either way. Thomas does that visit himself, so what you are told standing in the room is what turns up on the quote.
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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.