Skirting Boards near you

Queensland's guide sets the benchmark for internal fixing plainly: within the first twelve months, and unless documented otherwise, gaps between mouldings or between mouldings and other fixtures, at mitre or butt joints, or at junctions with a wall or other surfaces, are defects if they exceed 1 mm in width and are visible from a normal viewing position. Separately, the faces of architraves and skirtings are defective if they are not aligned and flush at mitres and butt joints where the misalignment can be seen from a normal viewing position.

That is a tight number, and it is not really a test of the carpenter. It is a test of everything that came before. A 1 mm gap at the top of a skirting means the wall is straight; a 1 mm gap at a mitre means the corner is square; a consistent line along the floor means the floor is flat. Which is why a skirting quote on a renovation should include an allowance for scribing the board to an uneven floor, and why refusing that allowance is how you end up with a gap you can see from the doorway.

The guide also contains a detail worth knowing when you are reading plans: it explains that internal room sizes will be different once skirtings are fitted, because the documented set-out is to the structure. If a room dimension on a drawing matters to you — for a bed, a bath, a fridge cavity — the skirting comes off that dimension twice, once on each wall.

The order is usually: floor covering decided, then skirting, then the covering laid, or in some jobs the covering first and the skirting over it. Which way round it goes is a real decision and should be stated in the quote. A floating floor needs a continuous perimeter expansion gap, and the skirting covers that gap — but if the skirting is fixed down onto the floor instead of to the wall, it pins the floor and the floor will peak. Skirting fixes to the wall. Scotia or quad, if used, fixes to the skirting.

The board is then cut to the wall, not to the plan. Internal corners on a good job are scribed rather than mitred, because a scribed joint stays closed when the timber shrinks and a mitre opens. External corners are mitred and glued. Long walls are joined with a scarf joint on a stud rather than a butt joint in mid-air. These are small craft decisions and they are the entire difference between skirting that still looks right in five years and skirting that has hairline gaps at every corner.

Then fixing, filling, sanding and painting. Fixings go into studs and noggings where possible, gaps at the wall are caulked with a flexible paintable sealant rather than filled hard, and nail holes are filled and sanded before the top coat. Caulking the top edge is what makes the line look clean; filling it with hard filler is what makes it crack the first time the house moves.

In a house with a termite management system, the skirting line is not neutral. Queensland's guide records that in that state primary building elements as defined by the NCC include door jambs, window frames and reveals, architraves and skirtings — so damage to skirting by termites is damage to a primary building element, not to decoration.

The system that is meant to prevent that relies on being visible. The ABCB Housing Provisions require a termite management system where a Class 1 or 10 building is in an area of potential subterranean termite risk and primary building elements are susceptible, complying with AS 3660.1 or tested to AS 3660.3, with a durable notice fixed permanently in a prominent location such as the meter box stating the system, the installation date, the life expectancy of any chemical and the inspection and maintenance recommendations. Queensland's guide adds that most systems rely on a 75 mm visual perimeter inspection zone at the slab edge so that termite workings are forced into view.

For skirting work the practical consequences are modest but real. Do not build anything at the internal perimeter that makes the external slab edge harder to inspect. Keep the durable notice where it is. And if you are lifting old skirting in a house in a termite area, look behind it while you have the chance — the back of a skirting board and the bottom of a wall frame are precisely where workings turn up, and it is the only time in a decade that you will have a clear view.

Replacing a single damaged length is straightforward if the profile is still available and the paint finish can be matched. Both are bigger ifs than they sound: profiles change, and a wall painted five years ago will not match a fresh coat, so the honest scope is often to replace the board and repaint the whole run to the nearest corner.

Full replacement makes sense when the profile is being changed to suit a renovation, when the existing skirting is a fibreboard that has been damaged by water more than once, when a new floor covering means everything has to come off anyway, or when the existing boards are so heavily built up with paint layers that the profile has disappeared. It is also the moment to look behind the wall base, which you will not get again.

A middle path worth considering in older houses is keeping the existing skirting and adding a small scotia or quad at the floor. It hides a variable gap along an uneven floor without disturbing paintwork or plaster, and in a period house it can be a more sympathetic result than new machine-made board. It is not always the elegant answer, but it is a cheap and reversible one.

Name the profile and height, the material, whether internal corners are scribed or mitred, how long walls are joined, whether the board is being scribed to an uneven floor, whether scotia is included, and what the paint finish is — primed only, one coat, or finished to a nominated sheen. Then add the acceptance standard: gaps at mitres, butt joints and wall junctions not exceeding 1 mm and visible from a normal viewing position, and faces aligned and flush at joints. Those two lines come straight from Queensland's guide and they give both sides something measurable.

Settle the sequencing with the floor installer in the same conversation. Who takes the old skirting off, who stores it, who refits it, and whether the skirting is fixed to the wall clear of the floor covering so a floating floor can move. That question causes more trouble on renovation jobs than any other detail in this trade.

The Australian Consumer Law guarantees apply — acceptable care and skill, fitness for any stated purpose, supply in a reasonable time — and licensing depends on the state and the value of the work, with Queensland running trade licence classes through the QBCC and New South Wales offering a licence check through Service NSW. Post the room list, the total linear metres and a photograph of an existing corner on LokalMatch, and ask each quote whether it includes scribing and painting.