Quality of finish advice

Tycho149

Tycho149

New Member
Hi All,

We are currently renovating our first house, we started with the smallest room (a single bedroom about 2x3m) in November. We had an electrician in for a rewire and found that the plaster in the house is very poorly bonded to the brick with significant sections completly blown.

As I enjoy DIY we decided to see how much we could get done ourselfs. I Iemoved all the old plaster and bonding back to the brickwork on three of the walls , cleaned any loose plaster off and applied PVA. The 4th wall was mostly ok as it is of block construction and for whatever reason the plaster was not blown.

Thats as far as i got when in late November i fractured my back in a car accident. We needed to get the room finished so we could start making use of it again.

We got a highly rated plaster (check a trade) in to finish the job. They came round and assessed the job and quoted us £600 to float and set the walls. We thought this was a little high but needed it done and would have been happy if the quality of work was high.

They did the job in one day, and it did feel like they were rushing. We had a a look and got some snaggs fixed before they left but.

the day after they plastered i noticed the following,
- plaster not level, placing a 1.8m straight edge on the wall reveled shallow patches and maybe a 10-15mm gap vertically from top to bottom.
- multiple bristles from a brush left on in in the surface of the plaster.
- plaster is not flush to the back box for the light switch, to the point where the switch will not sit flush with the wall.
- multiple small rough patches and nicks.
- under the window and in the window relief the plaster has started to craze
- in one part a nail is sticking out of the plaster.
- other cosmetic issues.

They are coming back to discuss the issues next week but as i have no experience with what a quality job looks like i don't know if i'm being to picky, Am i expecting to much from them?

Any advice would be great,

Cheers

Luke
 

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Float and set... they should have got that nearer... in fact there are are very little reasons why they cant get it near perfect

Most plasterers these days cant float and are just skimmers and I would say that these "plasterers" cant do that either...

£600 price... who knows if that is cheap or not... I would want more to do it that's for sure but then it would not look like that afterwards.
 
Tycho149 said:
Hi All,

We are currently renovating our first house, we started with the smallest room (a single bedroom about 2x3m) in November. We had an electrician in for a rewire and found that the plaster in the house is very poorly bonded to the brick with significant sections completly blown.

As I enjoy DIY we decided to see how much we could get done ourselfs. I Iemoved all the old plaster and bonding back to the brickwork on three of the walls , cleaned any loose plaster off and applied PVA. The 4th wall was mostly ok as it is of block construction and for whatever reason the plaster was not blown.

Thats as far as i got when in late November i fractured my back in a car accident. We needed to get the room finished so we could start making use of it again.

We got a highly rated plaster (check a trade) in to finish the job. They came round and assessed the job and quoted us £600 to float and set the walls. We thought this was a little high but needed it done and would have been happy if the quality of work was high.

They did the job in one day, and it did feel like they were rushing. We had a a look and got some snaggs fixed before they left but.

the day after they plastered i noticed the following,
- plaster not level, placing a 1.8m straight edge on the wall reveled shallow patches and maybe a 10-15mm gap vertically from top to bottom.
- multiple bristles from a brush left on in in the surface of the plaster.
- plaster is not flush to the back box for the light switch, to the point where the switch will not sit flush with the wall.
- multiple small rough patches and nicks.
- under the window and in the window relief the plaster has started to craze
- in one part a nail is sticking out of the plaster.
- other cosmetic issues.

They are coming back to discuss the issues next week but as i have no experience with what a quality job looks like i don't know if i'm being to picky, Am i expecting to much from them?

Any advice would be great,

Cheers

Luke
Click to expand...
Did matey dash off in a go faster striped tranny custom
 
Hi all,

Thanks for the replys and for confirming we should have expected better.

They are coming back next week to have a look. How would you expect to rectify the level of the wall. as it's been polished to some extent I expect you can't just bond it out further.

Is the crazing around the window something to be concerned about? My understanding is that it's due to it drying too quickly.

We intend on painting the walls and don't want any cracks showing through.

Thanks again

Luke
 
Ritch said:
Did matey dash off in a go faster striped tranny custom
Click to expand...
No, but they were in a rush, they finished late due two rounds of snagging that i had them do on there and then. I noticed the rest of the issues in the cold hard light of day.

The thing is they were one of the highest rated and well reviewed companies locally on check a trade and they seemed to know what they were talking about when they came a quoted for it.

If anyone on here knows a good plaster local to county Durham let me know as we will likely need more work doing in the future.
 
It’s just a sh1t job mate, couple of questions if I can?
how many quotes did you get in total?

What made you think that £600 was “a little high”?
 
and that’s some work of “a highly rated plaster” of check a trade.............wow
 
Your best bet is to go on checkatrade and give them a s**t rating and put the pics up on there,great plasterers on these type of sites are few and far between im afraid most plasterers on these type of websites use these sites as there main source of work which doesn't bode well for the customer
 
Tycho149 said:
No, but they were in a rush, they finished late due two rounds of snagging that i had them do on there and then. I noticed the rest of the issues in the cold hard light of day.

The thing is they were one of the highest rated and well reviewed companies locally on check a trade and they seemed to know what they were talking about when they came a quoted for it.

If anyone on here knows a good plaster local to county Durham let me know as we will likely need more work doing in the future.
Click to expand...

My mate joined check a trade as he relocated areas and wanted to drum up some more business. Any job he did for me, he he made sure I left him feedback to boost his profile. He’s really good at his job and I’m lucky to have him do the electrics on my jobs, so no problem. The thing is, it’s very easy for anyone to create a profile with blazing reviews...it just needs a few ‘mates’.
 
Last edited:
Tycho149 said:
Hi all,

Thanks for the replys and for confirming we should have expected better.

They are coming back next week to have a look. How would you expect to rectify the level of the wall. as it's been polished to some extent I expect you can't just bond it out further.

Is the crazing around the window something to be concerned about? My understanding is that it's due to it drying too quickly.

We intend on painting the walls and don't want any cracks showing through.

Thanks again

Luke
Click to expand...
Looks like they banged a load on and didn’t flatten it in time
All rush ,they certainly Won’t rectify the Job to any good standard
 
ChrispyUK said:
My mate joined check a trade as he relocated areas and wanted to drum up some more business. Any job he did for me, he he made sure I left him feedback. He’s really good at his job and I’m lucky to have him do the electrics on my jobs, so no problem. The thing is, it’s very easy for anyone to create a profile with blazing reviews...it just needs a few ‘mates’.
Click to expand...
I agree mate completely there's some great tradesmen on these sites I had a a company off checkatrade replace my boiler a few years ago and had them back in to move all the rads In the bedrooms problem with plastering its a trade thats to easily infiltrated by chancers and coursers theres now way you can go on a 2 week crash course electric or plumbing course and start changing boilers or rewiring houses
 
I seen adverts for checkatrade last week looking for plasterers all over different parts of the country to sign up for them, they could get them loads of work apparently. I thought it worked the other way around, the plasterers get their own work,and use checkatrade site as a reference to get themselves more work ?
 
themucky1 said:
It’s just a sh1t job mate, couple of questions if I can?
how many quotes did you get in total?

What made you think that £600 was “a little high”?
Click to expand...
For that room we only had the one quote but we also had another room quoted for by them and another company and they both came up with the same price. I had a quick search online and just over £500 seemed to be the norm for a room that size, with £600 being a little higher we didn't think we were going for the cheap option.

I don't think I will be using check a trade again.

We are in the Darlington area if there are anyone knows and plasters they would recommend.

We have to give them a chance to rectify it. We will have to see how that goes.....

I assume the quality of the finish can be improved by skimming it. But how would correct the difference in thickness of the bonding and the crazing? My thought was it would need knocking off and starting again.
 
raytheplasterer said:
I seen adverts for checkatrade last week looking for plasterers all over different parts of the country to sign up for them, they could get them loads of work apparently. I thought it worked the other way around, the plasterers get their own work,and use checkatrade site as a reference to get themselves more work ?
Click to expand...

My mate got a fair bit of work off them, so yes they can get you work so to speak, but you need to sign up and do the leg work to create a good profile and rating.

It’s fair enough in principle, as joe bloggs is sucked in with the glossy advertising and thinks they’re getting someone with good references, but it’s open to abuse.
 
Tycho149 said:
Hi All,

We are currently renovating our first house, we started with the smallest room (a single bedroom about 2x3m) in November. We had an electrician in for a rewire and found that the plaster in the house is very poorly bonded to the brick with significant sections completly blown.

As I enjoy DIY we decided to see how much we could get done ourselfs. I Iemoved all the old plaster and bonding back to the brickwork on three of the walls , cleaned any loose plaster off and applied PVA. The 4th wall was mostly ok as it is of block construction and for whatever reason the plaster was not blown.

Thats as far as i got when in late November i fractured my back in a car accident. We needed to get the room finished so we could start making use of it again.

We got a highly rated plaster (check a trade) in to finish the job. They came round and assessed the job and quoted us £600 to float and set the walls. We thought this was a little high but needed it done and would have been happy if the quality of work was high.

They did the job in one day, and it did feel like they were rushing. We had a a look and got some snaggs fixed before they left but.

the day after they plastered i noticed the following,
- plaster not level, placing a 1.8m straight edge on the wall reveled shallow patches and maybe a 10-15mm gap vertically from top to bottom.
- multiple bristles from a brush left on in in the surface of the plaster.
- plaster is not flush to the back box for the light switch, to the point where the switch will not sit flush with the wall.
- multiple small rough patches and nicks.
- under the window and in the window relief the plaster has started to craze
- in one part a nail is sticking out of the plaster.
- other cosmetic issues.

They are coming back to discuss the issues next week but as i have no experience with what a quality job looks like i don't know if i'm being to picky, Am i expecting to much from them?

Any advice would be great,

Cheers

Luke
Click to expand...
Give us an update if they turn up, to what bs they tried to fill you with...
 
Tycho149 said:
For that room we only had the one quote but we also had another room quoted for by them and another company and they both came up with the same price. I had a quick search online and just over £500 seemed to be the norm for a room that size, with £600 being a little higher we didn't think we were going for the cheap option.

I don't think I will be using check a trade again.

We are in the Darlington area if there are anyone knows and plasters they would recommend.

We have to give them a chance to rectify it. We will have to see how that goes.....

I assume the quality of the finish can be improved by skimming it. But how would correct the difference in thickness of the bonding and the crazing? My thought was it would need knocking off and starting again.
Click to expand...
And what pricing tool did you use online to get the total of £500?
can you see where this is heading?
 
Tycho149 said:
For that room we only had the one quote but we also had another room quoted for by them and another company and they both came up with the same price. I had a quick search online and just over £500 seemed to be the norm for a room that size, with £600 being a little higher we didn't think we were going for the cheap option.

I don't think I will be using check a trade again.

We are in the Darlington area if there are anyone knows and plasters they would recommend.

We have to give them a chance to rectify it. We will have to see how that goes.....

I assume the quality of the finish can be improved by skimming it. But how would correct the difference in thickness of the bonding and the crazing? My thought was it would need knocking off and starting again.
Click to expand...
Come on boys . Who's near Darlington. .
 
That just shows what check a trade n the likes of are all about! I had a lad working for me for aboot 6 months couldn't do owt with him absolute nugget! He's on um all useless cnt! Gets work though told him to f**k off last time I seen him before he gets knocked out fking discrace to the trade little prick!
 
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