Plastering in Winterborne Stickland
Lath ceilings, lime work, skimming and external render across Winterborne Stickland and the DT11 villages. We sound the walls before we price them.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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If a ceiling in a Winterborne Stickland cottage has started to bow and shed dust, it is the lath fixings letting go. The plaster itself has rarely failed. Either it comes down and is boarded and skimmed in a day, or it is sound enough to fix from above and skim over. We will tell you which after ten minutes with a torch in the loft.
In a village as old as Winterborne Stickland, the trouble is usually in the old fabric. A ceiling that has dropped a little between the joists and leaves grit on the furniture. Plaster that drums hollow along the bottom of a wall and has been patched twice already. Or a room that has just been bought and wants pulling back to something flat and clean without losing the shape of the house.
We come out, sound every wall and ceiling in the rooms concerned, get into the loft where we can, and tell you which of those you are dealing with. What is behind the surface in the old part of Winterborne Stickland is flint and brick or cob, not blockwork, and that decides the specification far more than the size of the room does.
The work
A dead straight wall in a crooked room looks wrong
Lath and plaster ceilings. The old cottages in Winterborne Stickland have them overhead. Thin riven laths nailed across the joists with haired plaster squeezed through the gaps to form a key on the back. The plaster itself usually outlives the nails, and once the key snaps off the ceiling hangs on nothing and bellies down.
If more than about a third of the key has gone, it comes down, gets boarded and is skimmed, a day for a bedroom and two for a big room with beams to work round. If it is sound and only tired, it is cheaper to secure it from the loft side and skim over, and we would rather do that than sell you a ceiling you do not need.
Lime plaster on flint, brick and cob. The walls in the old part of Winterborne Stickland are solid, with no cavity behind them and nothing under them to stop ground water rising. They dry through their own face. Put gypsum hardwall and a modern paint over that and you have closed the only route out, and the salts come back through in a white bloom within a couple of winters. We hack off what has blown, brush the background back, then work in a haired lime backing coat in more than one pass and finish it breathable.
Old cottages in Winterborne Stickland have wide fireplace openings and window reveals two feet deep, and both are where a rushed job shows first. A breast that gets warm and carries old soot behind it will push gypsum straight back off, so that goes in lime too. Reveals get a stop bead run properly plumb and an external corner an angle bead, and we keep the soft edges and slight waves of an old wall and do not laser it flat, because a dead straight wall in a crooked room looks wrong and you cannot undo it.
The bungalows and houses added along the village in the last sixty years are gypsum on brick or block and want a skim, not a strip: covers down, a clean, PVA where the background is dusty, two passes of finish coat, and a mist coat before you decorate. Where one has blown, the backing coat is floated to a rule, browning where the block pulls and bonding on a dense face. Artex ceilings from the seventies skim over well once stabilised, and we never sand or scrape one, because coatings of that age can contain asbestos. Extensions and outbuilding conversions go on dabs where the blockwork is flat and dry, stud where it is not. Outside, the sand and cement and the pebbledash on the newer houses craze and drum in the end, and most of that render can be repaired without replacing the lot, in lime on old fabric and in a silicone thin coat or monocouche on modern block. For the outside walls, see rendering in Winterborne Stickland.
How it runs
Replastering an old room, from survey to skim
Replastering an old room in Winterborne Stickland starts with a free visit. Thomas taps every wall and ceiling in the rooms concerned, not just the one you rang about, to find what is sound and what has blown.
In an older Winterborne Stickland house that often means lime on flint or brick, or lath and plaster ceilings; in a later extension it is plasterboard and skim. His quote lists sheeting and protection, what is hacked off, any boarding, the backing coat, the beads, the finish, and taking the waste away. One company is responsible for all of it.
Floors and furniture are covered, doorways sheeted, and dust kept in the room. Old plaster is bagged daily and taken away. External render repairs are worked from a tower or scaffold. If we find damp, rotten lath or a cracked lintel, you get a photograph and a price before carrying on.
Plaster inside an ordinary house is your business, and patching render like for like is repair. Winterborne Stickland asks a little more. The older core is recorded as a conservation area, which is worth confirming with Dorset Council, and there are around twenty five listed entries, Quarleston Farmhouse and the Church of St Mary among them. On a listed house, listed building consent can reach internal plaster. Re-render most of an elevation rather than patch it and Approved Document L brings building control in.
Cost
Lime or gypsum: the wall decides the plastering price
A square metre rate is the easiest number to give and the least useful one, because it tells you nothing about what is behind the old plaster.
What the walls are. A flint and brick wall under original lime, a chimney breast somebody skimmed in gypsum, and an extension with sound plasterboard are three different prices in one house. Old solid walls need lime back on them so they can dry out; gypsum on them traps damp and blows.
How much comes off. Hacking off is slow, dusty and heavy. The backing coat then has to build out any hollows before the finish coat goes on.
Ceilings. Lath and plaster that has sagged may need taking down and replacing with plasterboard and a skim, or repairing in lime if the house is listed.
Access. A cottage on a bend in the lane with nowhere to park means everything is carried. A house with a drive at the door is simpler. Outside, a tower does for low render repairs and a gable needs a scaffold.
Ask other quotes what backing coat they are using, whether it is lime or gypsum, and who takes the waste away.
If it has just gone
Plaster off after a leak, or a ceiling on the floor
Ring rather than use the form when a ceiling sags and drops, plaster falls away after a leak, or render peels off a gable. If we miss the call we ring back as soon as we can. Shut the door on the room and, if water has reached a light, switch that circuit off at the board.
Our first visit brings down anything hanging, props or sheets what remains, and finds the source of the water. Then Thomas prices the making good. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Where it cannot wait, call; an unanswered call gets a ring back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
What listing and the conservation area actually stop you doing
Winterborne Stickland has about twenty five listed entries in and around the village, and a conservation area over the old core, and the two work differently in a way that changes your specification as well as your paperwork.
Listing covers the whole building, inside as well as out, so an original lath ceiling, a moulded cornice and even the lime plaster on a wall can be part of what is protected. Taking a lath ceiling down and boarding it is the job that catches people out, because it feels like maintenance and can need listed building consent.
Conservation area control works on appearance from the outside: adding render to a wall that is bare flint or brick, taking render off, or changing the finish and colour are all changes of appearance, while repairing what is already there is not. Being in the Dorset National Landscape matters too, because the permitted development right that lets people elsewhere render a house without asking does not apply on designated land.
What that means when you are choosing between quotes is worth saying plainly. Consent takes weeks, so a job that needs it needs a date in the diary rather than a start next Tuesday. Like for like repair almost never needs it.
And a lime specification costs more in labour than a gypsum one, but on a listed cottage it is the one that will be accepted anyway, so a cheaper quote that hacks the lot off and hardwalls it is not a saving. If your house is neither listed nor in the conservation area, none of this applies and we will say so at the visit.
Who you are dealing with
Who plasters your walls, and where they come from
We are about 19.1 miles from Winterborne Stickland, working from 80a Wolverton Road in Boscombe. We cover the village and the DT11 villages around it, Winterborne Houghton, Winterborne Whitechurch, Turnworth and Durweston, and down the valley into Blandford Forum.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up. Thomas Hannen owns it and comes out to tap your walls and price the job himself. Checkatrade has a verified 10 out of 10 from one of our customers. Coming out and writing the itemised quote cost you nothing. Before you book a visit in Winterborne Stickland, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Winterborne Stickland?
Most repairs in Winterborne Stickland 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 Winterborne Stickland |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Winterborne Stickland. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Winterborne Stickland Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Winterborne Stickland. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Dorset National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about plastering in Winterborne Stickland
Quarleston Farmhouse is listed. How do we check ours?
Search the national list by address, or ask Dorset Council. There are 25 listed entries in this parish, Quarleston Farmhouse and the Church of St Mary among them, and most of the rest are houses, not monuments. Listing runs to the interior, so plaster, cornices and lath ceilings inside are covered as well as the elevations. If yours is on the list, work needs consent before it starts and the specification is usually lime.
We want to render over the flint and brick. Allowed?
That would be a change of appearance, and Winterborne Stickland has its own conservation area, so it is not a decision to take standing on site. Covering exposed flint and brick alters how the building reads from the street, which is exactly what the designation controls, and Dorset Council would need an application. There is a fabric argument too: a solid flint wall dries through its face and a dense modern render traps that moisture inside.
Can a lath and plaster ceiling be saved rather than replaced?
Often it can. Where the plaster keys pushed through the lath are still holding, the ceiling can be secured from above and either overboarded or repaired in lime. Where the keys have sheared off, it comes down. In a listed Stickland cottage that decision is not ours alone, because removing an original ceiling needs consent first. We test by pressing from below and looking at the keys from the loft wherever there is access.
The house sits in the open. Does that show on the walls?
It shows on the south west face. The exposed elevation here looks south west, twenty four kilometres in from the coast, and it takes the driven rain while the sheltered sides stay dry enough to look fine for years. On a rendered or limewashed wall the breakdown starts at the openings and at the base, where water concentrates. In practice that is one elevation of work instead of a wrap around the whole house.
Who actually comes out to look at an old cottage?
Thomas Hannen, who owns the firm and prices the work himself. On a listed or conservation area building here that matters, because the decisions are about backing coats, lime mixes and what the conservation officer will accept, not about picking a package off a list. The visit and the written itemised quote are both free. The company is Bournemouth Roofing and Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering near Winterborne Stickland
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Plastering nearby
Our other trades in Winterborne Stickland
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Get a price for plastering in Winterborne Stickland
Tell us the address and what you have noticed. We will come out, sound the walls and ceilings, and put an itemised price in writing. No charge, and no obligation.