Plasterer in Exeter

Plastering in Exeter

Exeter sits right in the middle of our patch, so we are in the city and the suburbs most weeks.

Exeter's housing is a real spread, and the walls behind it are too. Georgian and Victorian terraces around St Leonards, Heavitree and Pennsylvania, where you are often onto lath and lime and the odd bit of cob. Post-war semis out towards Pinhoe and Whipton, usually sound but tired. New builds and extensions on the edges of the city, where it is plasterboard and a straight skim.

Same trowel, different job. We look at what the wall actually is before we quote.

How a room gets skimmed

Handy to know before you book anyone, ours or otherwise.

• Covering upFloors sheeted, anything staying gets protected, and sockets, switches and radiator valves taped before a trowel comes out of the bag.
• PrepWallpaper off, loose or blown plaster back to something solid, and the wall treated so it pulls water out of the plaster at the right speed. That last bit is most of the job.
• Two coats onFinish plaster laid on and flattened while it is still moving.
• Trowelled upWorked as it sets. Get on it too early and you chase it round the wall. Leave it too long and it has gone off on you, and then you see every pass in the light forever.
• Cleared upWe take the rubbish with us. A room is usually a day, two if it is big or there is a lot of prep.

A wall that sucks too fast gives you a skim full of drag marks. Too slow and it sits there wet and goes patchy. Which is why the prep matters more than the plastering.

How to tell a good skim from a bad one

Most people only find out whether their plastering was any good once it is painted, which is too late. You can check it yourself before that. No trade knowledge needed.

• Look along the wall, not at itStand at one end and sight down the surface towards a window. Dips, hollows and trowel ripples jump out in that raking light, and anything you can see now will still be there under the paint. Straight on, a wall can look perfect and be nothing of the sort.
• Check the cornersInternal corners crisp and straight top to bottom. External corners and reveals sharp, with the bead buried properly rather than a lump of plaster with a metal line grinning through it. Corners take time, so they are usually the first thing to suffer if someone is rushing.
• Run your hand over itSmooth and even, not gritty or wavy. You should not feel joins, and there should be no fat edges where one section met another.

If there is something you are not sure about on a wall we have done, say so before we pack up. Far easier to sort while we are still there with the gear out than a fortnight later.

Before we arrive, and after we leave

• Your bitMove what you can out of the room, curtains and blinds down, anything off the walls including mirrors and shelf brackets. We will sheet up the rest. Full prep guide.
• DryingAround a week for a skim before paint, longer in a cold house or on a full re-plaster. Paint it too early and you seal the moisture in, then it goes patchy and starts peeling. Drying and painting guide.
• First coatA watered-down mist coat, not full-strength emulsion.
• Hairline cracksNormal as it dries, nothing to panic about. Why that happens.

Had a leak?

Water-damaged and collapsed ceilings are what we get called about most urgently in Exeter, and they are their own thing. Water-damaged ceilings, or plaster repairs for cracks, holes and blown patches.