Plasterer & Roughcaster in Johnstone

Work in Johnstone

Harling, and the older stock

Johnstone grew as a mill town, and the older parts of it are stone, harled, with the harl doing the job of keeping the weather out of a wall that would otherwise soak.

When that coat fails on a stone building the stone starts to suffer, so a failed harl is more urgent than a failed dash on a block wall. The repair is also more involved, because stone is never flat and the build up has to allow the wall to breathe.

The post war estates

Large parts of the town went up after the war in block, finished in roughcast from new. Those are the full re-dash jobs: a sound wall behind, a coat that has simply run out of road, and a decision to make about white, speckled or going to smooth render.

Gable ends on the terraces in those estates are usually the first thing to fail, and a gable only job is a perfectly sensible thing to do.

Inside

Artex is everywhere in housing of that age and Johnstone has a lot of it. We cover and skim rather than scrape, which keeps the dust down and avoids disturbing a material that on ceilings of that age is better left where it is.

Ceilings that have been filled and painted repeatedly are the other common one. If the crack keeps coming back, the filler is not the problem.