Drywall Installation near you

It helps to describe what you want in the same terms a plasterer prices it, because the method changes the price far more than the square metres do. Ask which of these the quote covers, and if a contractor proposes a different method from the one you expected, ask why, since there is usually a good reason to do with the wall behind it.

Plasterboard is not one product. Boards are made in different thicknesses and in versions intended for moisture, fire, acoustic and impact performance, and the right choice depends on the room and on what the wall has to do. A good plasterer will tell you which board is going where and why, and will not use the same sheet in a bathroom, a garage wall and a bedroom ceiling.

The finishing materials matter just as much. A skimmed finish is normally built up with a backing or bonding coat where the background needs it, then a thin finish plaster, worked and trowelled as it sets. A taped and jointed finish instead uses jointing compound and tape over the seams and screw heads, sanded flat. Scrim tape at the joints, beads at the external corners and stop beads at the edges are what stop a finish cracking along its weakest lines.

This is the decision that most surprises anyone who learned the American vocabulary. In North America the default is to tape and joint the seams and leave the board faces exposed under paint. In Britain the traditional default in housing is a full plaster skim: a thin coat of finish plaster over the entire boarded surface, trowelled to a continuous, slightly polished face. Both are legitimate, and plenty of British contractors do both, but they produce different walls.

A skim gives a single monolithic surface with no visible board joints, hides small imperfections across the whole area and is very forgiving of a wall that will later be painted in a mid-sheen. It needs a wet trade in the house, and the plaster has to dry before decoration. Tape and joint keeps the mess and the drying time down, is quicker to get onto, and is common on larger or drier programmes, but the joints are localised bands of compound, so the quality of the feathering and the sanding is what you see under a raking light. Ask which one a quote assumes, because comparing a skimmed price with a taped price is comparing two different jobs.

The sequence matters because almost nothing can be corrected once the board is on. Electrics and plumbing go in first, at what the trade calls first fix, along with any insulation, and that is the moment to decide where sockets, switches, lights, radiator pipes, a wall-mounted television and any future fixings are going. Noggins and pattresses put into a stud wall now cost almost nothing; finding a way to hang a heavy mirror on a hollow wall afterwards is a different story.

Then the board goes up, joints are scrimmed, beads are set at the corners, and the surface is either skimmed or taped and jointed. After that comes the part homeowners underestimate: drying. Fresh plaster has to dry out before it is decorated, and the time depends on thickness, ventilation and the weather rather than on a fixed number of days. Rushing a mist coat onto plaster that is still dark in patches is the standard way to spoil a good plastering job.

LokalMatch is built for the quoting stage. You describe the job once, including whether it is a new partition, dry lining or a ceiling, the rough dimensions, the property type and whether you want a skim or a taped finish, and matched plasterers and dry liners covering your postcode get in touch with you directly. The professionals pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not carry out the work, does not set prices and does not vet, rank or recommend any contractor, so compare the method, the board specification and what each firm says about drying time before you compare anything else.

Boarding an existing wall is generally a finish rather than a building operation, but plasterboarding is usually one stage of something larger, and the larger thing may need approval. In England and Wales, gov.uk is explicit that you must check whether you need approval before you construct or change buildings in certain ways, and that approval comes from a building control body: either your local authority's building control department or a private registered building control approver. Approved Document B gives the guidance on fire safety in England, in a volume for dwellings and a volume for buildings other than dwellings, and Approved Document E covers resistance to the passage of sound in dwelling-houses, flats, rooms for residential use and schools. Both are England guidance.

Scotland is a separate system rather than a variation on the same one. A building warrant is needed for work including building or removing load-bearing walls, converting a loft or garage into a room, and other structural changes, and it is the local council's building standards department that assesses the application; a warrant is valid for three years from the date it is granted. The technical handbooks that support this provide guidance on achieving the standards set in the Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004, in sections including Structure, Fire, Environment, Safety, Noise and Energy. In Northern Ireland the framework is the Building Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2012, whose parts include Part E on fire safety and Part G on resistance to the passage of sound.

Dry lining a solid wall is the job most likely to go wrong quietly. Government guidance on damp distinguishes penetrating damp, where water enters from outside through defects in walls, roofs, windows or floors, from rising damp, which is moisture from the ground rising up through parts of the building, and from condensation, where moisture generated inside the home condenses onto colder parts. Board a wall that has any of those and you have hidden the symptom while leaving the cause in place, with a new void behind the board for moisture to collect in.

The second thing to establish is what is there already. HSE states that asbestos may be part of any commercial or domestic building built or refurbished before the year 2000 and that it was widely used until banned in 1999. Asbestos insulating board was used as a lining material and can look unremarkable, and textured decorative coatings on existing walls and ceilings are another common encounter. Removing loosely fixed asbestos insulating board panels and certain textured coating work can fall within non-licensed work, but that still requires a risk assessment, proper controls and workers with appropriate information, instruction and training. If something unexpected is found behind the old finish, the right response is to stop and identify it.

Plastering and dry lining are messy in ways that reach the rest of the house. Sanding jointing compound produces a very fine dust that travels under doors and settles everywhere, and cutting or chasing into masonry to run cables or pipes is a different and more serious exposure: HSE notes that silica is a major constituent of construction materials such as bricks, tiles, concrete and mortar, and that dust is generated during common tasks including cutting, drilling, grinding and polishing. HSE also states that regularly breathing construction dust can cause diseases like lung cancer, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and silicosis, and that over 500 construction workers are believed to die from exposure to silica dust every year.

For the household, the practical steps are agreeing how the work area will be sealed off, expecting on-tool extraction or water suppression rather than a broom and an open window, and planning for the drying period afterwards. Keep the heating gentle and steady and the ventilation going rather than forcing plaster dry with a heater aimed at a wall, which can craze the surface. Nobody should be sanding plaster or chasing walls in an occupied home without proper dust control.