[Misc] Plastering - lime plaster - NSC knowledge request

[chickens]

Good morning all,

Looking for advice on plastering an older property. Always believed if the house was built with lime plaster, you should continue to use lime plaster, the risk being damp issues if you use gypsum plaster.

The first room being a 16ft x 12ft bedroom. My first quote was £3100, which was a bit of a shock.

This is the first time a property I’ve lived in has had lime plaster. Is lime plaster that labour intensive by comparison to gypsum?

Edit: I’m not looking for local recommendations as I’m based in South Wales, (thanks @MJsGhost) but what’s a reasonable price for a single room, lime plastering as opposed to gypsum? I know lime plaster takes longer to dry, but I wasn’t aware of other differences that would affect the cost.

 

[zefarelly]

£600 a minute does seem a lot.

I'd expect a premium for a specialist, but not a dry humping . . . More homework required.

 

[severnside gull]

Lime plastering is a specific skill and it isn’t cheap to get a good plasterer. The price quoted feels high though (I don’t know how big the room is but I’m assuming it’s not the long gallery in your baronial mansion) and the difference of £700 to put down dust covers suggests to me that they don’t need the work and they are trying to put you off.
Look for another quote (if you can find another lime plaster) but anyways wait until winter when there’s no outside work available to them and the price will drop.

 

[MJsGhost]

Not sure where you are, but I know someone who's based in Heathfield that (if he's not too busy, which is a distinct possibility) would be just the man.
He'll give you good advice even if he can't take the job.
I'll DM you his number.

 

[aftershavedave]

Have had extensive lime plastering done here near Uckfield and that price is way way too high!

 

[Bodian]

Whatever you choose - buy those sticky carpet protector rolls and put them on the carpet yourself before their 'dust sheets'. My experience of plasterers dust sheets is that they often allow dust (and water in the case of plastering) and quite often shift and move around the room leaving exposed bits. And plastering seems to be one of those jobs that it is impossible to do without getting stuff everywhere - so best to be prepared.

Regarding lime plaster, I think that a) you need more coats, and b) they take longer to dry out. So the whole job is longer.

 

[exKT17]

The fact is that there is a great shortage of lime pointing specialists and consequently people make ridiculous quotes on the basis that if one mug in 100 takes the bait they'll be laughing. We were quoted £12k to do the exterior of our house (circa 1200 sq ft) but subsequently found a one man band who did it for £6k. So your quote does look on the high side to me.

You could always learn to do it yourself - there are day courses out there. Lime isn't particularly nice to work with but it's fairly straightforward. And you're quite right about needing to use proper lime mortar, not to do so would be a bad idea.

Good luck!

 

[Bodian]

Lime isn't particularly nice to work with but it's fairly straightforward.

Dries your hands out terribly.

 

[Seagull on the Hill]

Lime plastering is very labour intensive.
It usually consists of 3 coats, each of which must be allowed to fully dry before the next coat is applied.
Lime plaster is also more expensive than gypsum based plaster.

 

[Seagull on the Hill]

The fact is that there is a great shortage of lime pointing specialists and consequently people make ridiculous quotes on the basis that if one mug in 100 takes the bait they'll be laughing. We were quoted £12k to do the exterior of our house (circa 1200 sq ft) but subsequently found a one man band who did it for £6k. So your quote does look on the high side to me.

You could always learn to do it yourself - there are day courses out there. Lime isn't particularly nice to work with but it's fairly straightforward. And you're quite right about needing to use proper lime mortar, not to do so would be a bad idea.

Good luck!

Lime plastering is a different skill to lime pointing.
It's not something that can be learned on a short course, I know plenty of very experienced plasterers who won't touch lime plastering .

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

Lime plastering is very labour intensive.
It usually consists of 3 coats, each of which must be allowed to fully dry before the next coat is applied.
Lime plaster is also more expensive than gypsum based plaster.

This. We've had four rooms replastered from the core. We had four layers of plaster (all different grades) and ended up with 6 inches on some of the stone walls. The plaster costs a lot, the specialist are in short supply. Lime plastering costs a fortune. Beware someone doing it on the cheap.

Mrs CBH is a listed property renovation specialist. I checked with her and her view was if it's just a top layer skim to clean up the wall, it's a bit toppy. If you're having the wall replastered from lathes or from stone/brick then it's a good price.

 

[Zeberdi]

Good morning all,

Looking for advice on plastering an older property. Always believed if the house was built with lime plaster, you should continue to use lime plaster, the risk being damp issues if you use gypsum plaster.

The first room being a 16ft x 12ft bedroom. My first quote was £3100, which was a bit of a shock.

This is the first time a property I’ve lived in has had lime plaster. Is lime plaster that labour intensive by comparison to gypsum?

Edit: I’m not looking for local recommendations as I’m based in South Wales, (thanks @MJsGhost) but what’s a reasonable price for a single room, lime plastering as opposed to gypsum? I know lime plaster takes longer to dry, but I wasn’t aware of other differences that would affect the cost.

Can’t give you any costs - just the benefit of experience if you are dealing with an old property especially if you have solid walls.

Lime was used in old properties to allow water to penetrate into walls then evaporate again in dry weather/or when fires/woodburners were lit. Old houses were meant to have a movement of water through their solid walls. Preventing that can cause serious and irreparable condensation problems.

The damage DIYers have done to heritage properties over the years is appalling - with cement rendering, gypsum plaster, even trying to inject damp proofing or using interior damp proof linings.

When I bought my property (solid chalk and flint walls built circa. 1730s), it had an horrendous damp problem which only became apparent after I had bought the house (no didn’t have time for a full survey ). The water after a few weeks was literally running down the walls along the entire length of the gable wall. All the neighbours admitted that various previous owners over the decades had battled with damp in the house as far back as they could remember - it had even been delisted by the previous owners because so much damage had been done with ‘improvements’.

Several builders/owners since the 1950s had been patching up walls with all the above methods above and layering plastic paints over plastic based paints. Was advised to dry-line interior walls, repaint with waterproof emulsion and add another layer of paint to gable walls and repair cracks with cement as previous owners.

Knowing a bit about old houses I knew all the damp was condensation caused by previous repairs and ’improvements’, I instead thought bugger the cost, had all the paint stripped off the exterior walls, layered on since the 1950s, exterior concrete rendering removed to first floor level - repaired deep cracks in flint work with reclaimed flints and liquid lime mortar, then lime mortar repairs, followed by lime rendering and 2 layers of ‘sacrificial’ Kilm limewash.

Inside, walls stripped back to gypsum which was removed and replaced with lime plaster, followed by thin layer of chalk based paint, and two coats two layers of the same undiluted.

I also removed all the uPVC windows, replacing them with solid wooden frames set in lime mortar and lowered the ground at the base of the gable wall and removed the concrete slab paving - old houses have no foundations so the base of the wall needs to be higher than the exterior ground.

Yes, all slightly more tricky to apply, especially lime washes (hence slightly higher labour costs) and note optimum weather temperatures are required for exterior lime work. It is also dangerous to inhale, skin burns and can cause serious eye irritation so tradesman need to wear googles.

However, the finish with lime is so much nicer and authentic looking than other plaster finishes. More importantly, lime products are porous and more flexible than cement and plastic products so allow old houses natural movement and to breathe.

House bone dry ever since - that was 6 years ago.

TL;DR Old houses need flexible building materials because they are prone to movement and they need to breathe.

 

[Seagull on the Hill]

Can’t give you any costs - just the benefit of experience if you are dealing with an old property especially if you have solid walls.

Lime was used in old properties to allow water to penetrate into walls then evaporate again in dry weather/or when fires/woodburners were lit. Old houses were meant to have a movement of water through their solid walls. Preventing that can cause serious and irreparable condensation problems.

The damage DIYers have done to heritage properties over the years is appalling - with cement rendering, gypsum plaster, even trying to inject damp proofing or using interior damp proof linings.

When I bought my property (solid chalk and flint walls built circa. 1730s), it had an horrendous damp problem which only became apparent after I had bought the house (no didn’t have time for a full survey ). The water after a few weeks was literally running down the walls along the entire length of the gable wall. All the neighbours admitted that various previous owners over the decades had battled with damp in the house as far back as they could remember - it had even been delisted by the previous owners because so much damage had been done with ‘improvements’.

Several builders/owners since the 1950s had been patching up walls with all the above methods above and layering plastic paints over plastic based paints. Was advised to dry-line interior walls, repaint with waterproof emulsion and add another layer of paint to gable walls and repair cracks with cement as previous owners.

Knowing a bit about old houses I knew all the damp was condensation caused by previous repairs and ’improvements’, I instead thought bugger the cost, had all the paint stripped off the exterior walls, layered on since the 1950s, exterior concrete rendering removed to first floor level - repaired deep cracks in flint work with reclaimed flints and liquid lime mortar, then lime mortar repairs, followed by lime rendering and 2 layers of ‘sacrificial’ Kilm limewash.

Inside, walls stripped back to gypsum which was removed and replaced with lime plaster, followed by thin layer of chalk based paint, and two coats two layers of the same undiluted.

I also removed all the uPVC windows, replacing them with solid wooden frames set in lime mortar and lowered the ground at the base of the gable wall and removed the concrete slab paving - old houses have no foundations so the base of the wall needs to be higher than the exterior ground.

Yes, all slightly more tricky to apply, especially lime washes (hence slightly higher labour costs) and note optimum weather temperatures are required for exterior lime work. It is also dangerous to inhale, skin burns and can cause serious eye irritation so tradesman need to wear googles.

However, the finish with lime is so much nicer and authentic looking than other plaster finishes. More importantly, lime products are porous and more flexible than cement and plastic products so allow old houses natural movement and to breathe.

House bone dry ever since - that was 6 years ago.

TL;DR Old houses need flexible building materials because they are prone to movement and they need to breathe.

Totally agree with all of the above.
Old buildings and modern building materials don't go well together.

 

[chickens]

Thank you all so much for the responses. To answer questions asked so far, the job will involve a new ceiling but only skimming the existing walls.

Based on what you’re telling me, the quote was still too much, but not by the order of magnitude I initially thought. I think I paid £150 per room the last time I did this in 2015, but that was a newer house and gypsum plaster, just skimming all around. I have other quotes incoming, I’ll try and remember to update this with a final price when I’ve got one.

 

[aftershavedave]

Thank you all so much for the responses. To answer questions asked so far, the job will involve a new ceiling but only skimming the existing walls.

Based on what you’re telling me, the quote was still too much, but not by the order of magnitude I initially thought. I think I paid £150 per room the last time I did this in 2015, but that was a newer house and gypsum plaster, just skimming all around. I have other quotes incoming, I’ll try and remember to update this with a final price when I’ve got one.

Not sure I'd bother with lime on a ceiling. On the walls definitely, but gypsum on a new ceiling works in any old house I'd say

 

[Seagull on the Hill]

Thank you all so much for the responses. To answer questions asked so far, the job will involve a new ceiling but only skimming the existing walls.

Based on what you’re telling me, the quote was still too much, but not by the order of magnitude I initially thought. I think I paid £150 per room the last time I did this in 2015, but that was a newer house and gypsum plaster, just skimming all around. I have other quotes incoming, I’ll try and remember to update this with a final price when I’ve got one.

A couple of questions:
As they are only skimming the walls, is the existing plaster ( I assume it's lime) good (ie when you tap it are there any "hollow" sounds)?
Are they replacing the whole ceiling (ie taking it back to the ceiling joists) or just over boarding what's already there?

 

[chickens]

A couple of questions:
As they are only skimming the walls, is the existing plaster ( I assume it's lime) good (ie when you tap it are there any "hollow" sounds)?
Are they replacing the whole ceiling (ie taking it back to the ceiling joists) or just over boarding what's already there?

No hollow sounds, except the spot where there must have been a fireplace. Existing plaster is lime.

The ceilings are quite high, so the recommendation was over boarding to make the job quicker and easier. I could understand a more expensive quote if it was taking back to joists/removing the rubble etc.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Dries your hands out terribly.

How does it affect gloves?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Thank you all so much for the responses. To answer questions asked so far, the job will involve a new ceiling but only skimming the existing walls.

Based on what you’re telling me, the quote was still too much, but not by the order of magnitude I initially thought. I think I paid £150 per room the last time I did this in 2015, but that was a newer house and gypsum plaster, just skimming all around. I have other quotes incoming, I’ll try and remember to update this with a final price when I’ve got one.

That TV series presented by Kevin McCloud (Grand Designs) features quite a few houses where the build used lime mortar. It may be worth a trip through the iPlayer if you fancy having a go yourself, just to see what's involved before learning properly how to do it. Best of luck.

 

[Seagull on the Hill]

It's rather insulting to building tradesmen to suggest that it's possible to learn the skills required for lime plastering ( or any other building skills) by watching Grand Designs, or any other shows in that genre.
As I stated previously, many experienced plasterers won't undertake lime plastering because of the specific nature of that material.

That TV series presented by Kevin McCloud (Grand Designs) features quite a few houses where the build used lime mortar. It may be worth a trip through the iPlayer if you fancy having a go yourself, just to see what's involved before learning properly how to do it. Best of luck.