Might be worth mentioning roughly where you are, which county you're in or big city you're near as somebody might be able to suggest somebody local.

Hi BiscuitsAndTea
Commiserations regarding your problems with the tradespeople. We get the same problems over here - wait for months and then they don't turn up.

Are you wedded to lime plaster? The pragmatic approach might be to use gypsum plaster because it might be easier to get a plasterer

I'm in the realm of the East Riding near the Humber.

The first lime plasterer I had, I got from a really great lime plastering group I've followed since April, when I first started researching whether dot and dab plasterboard on external solid brick walls, really was a 'no no' due to Interstitial condensation risk.

We built a fantastic relationship with a 40min phone call and he was nothing but helpful online... until 2 days before he was due to arrive from Cornwall, when his messages got distant and I asked if we were all good to start, but he said he had to delay.

I gave him a further month but got sporadic replies. Some not making much sense, and eventually he said “I don’t do deadlines!”...

Turned out, he had a personal crisis (apparently) with his wife. That was 31st May. He’s still on that group and posted another job on a cob house he was doing, the following week, when he was supposed to be at our house! He’s apologised for letting me down but said his family and health had to come first.

Then; the next guy I hired, (who I’d originally contacted at the same time as the first) for a quote, was closer to home and wasn't so wordy, but he was highly recommended! He was hard to pin down, but I just wanted to get our home back, as it's been so stressful in our household! I asked him if I needed to get the landing ceiling laths taken down (as the plaster ceiling was removed too) and he said he'd take the central overlapping laths off properly, but to leave it to him and not to worry.

I cancelled a labourer who was to remove the laths. The plasterer arrived 2 weeks late but got on and I again didn't want to say too much, just kept him in tea and biscuits with his 2 teammates.

2 days in - on the evening, I looked properly at the landing and saw bits of plasterboarding to the stud lath internal areas undulated and so I mentioned that I was a bit worried the next day and could it be remedied, as it was something I’d be looking at for years to come and wasn’t cheap?

They started using a long spirit level everywhere and it appeared the landing ceiling was 1½-2” higher at the edges of the walls vs the centre, due to 12.5mm plasterboard being directly screwed to the existing laths. No cross battening done, which I’d mentioned I’d been advised would be best. A plasterer friend had also warned that plasterboard would follow an uneven substrate, so be careful with the ceiling. He wasn't available for the job though as works on new builds.
Anyway, so the plasterer boarded the lath walls upstairs and ceiling and skimmed the ceiling and a couple of walls. But downstairs the ceiling again was on a 1-1½” slant across the horizon and was very noticeable with the plasterboard dipping below the timber stair well skirtings. They were scratching their heads as to how to resolve it but had given themselves a tight time frame of 3 days for the gypsum boarding and skimming upstairs and downstairs ceiling included, so they could do the lime plaster downstairs and over the external soild brick wall Mon to Fri the following week. They were to use Lime Green Ultra and LG solo finishing.

I popped out to get some wood on Friday lunchtime. Came back and they were gone. I thought it an early finish even for a Friday, and noticed the dust sheets were gone. Monday morning, I waited for them to not turn up. Tried a message, a call, a text, a voicemail over a few hours but no response!

The next day I called the lime supplier who’d recommended him, and they called him for me. He told them I wanted everything ‘laser level' and that we needed a joiner! I’d waited 4 months living in a building site and had I known we needed a joiner, they would have been easy to find! We've been upset but to be honest are now so apathetic, we are just taking the stress out on one another and it's right messed up the summer holiday for our daughter – us arguing.

I thought I had a plan, when I first hired the dot and dab plasterer/builder back in January! I thought getting it replastered was the easy bit, as plasterers are everywhere on the trades groups, advertising for work! Thing is, I didn't know about lime at the time and they pretty much all only know gypsum. I didn’t reckon on there being a massive skill shortage for lime, or Brexit logistical issues!

We managed to get a really good joiner round last week on the last week of the school holidays, and he 'laser leveled’ the hall ceiling, and boarded it, after removing the laths and remaining lime plaster, plus architraves where it was still lodged. He screwed new timber to the joists to level. He's also screwed 25mm x 30mm roofing battens at 600mm centres where possible, to the internal solid brick wall, in prep for boarding. He was going to build out the door frames a little too, and do other jobs we needed, but that’s when I stumbled upon this forum and read about similar projects needling to meet building regs!!

This never started out as an insulation upgrade. It was to make our relatively newly bought 96yr old house, (1yr here) safe to live in, from damaged asbestos plaster - not flagged up in the full building survey we'd had commissioned privately. Now we’ve already spent 2k on plaster removal and it's looking at many more £££ to get it back to a decoratable finish.

Sorry about my sob story. I’m actually sick of hearing it! I need action now, and quickly, as a Winter with it like it is and my partner blaming me for getting us into this situation, is not something I want to face!
I just want to get the external solid brick wall lime plastered again, reinstating what was there, as the wall is lime mortared and any other finish will not be breathable. The bricks outside are in good condition. It is half rendered at the top with a recent render and looks great! Really leaving no possibility of external insulation. The stair case only has a 30mm depth on the stair string, so can't be built out further without reducing the stair width. We can't afford a new staircase.

The house is not in a conservation area or listed. But it is a really well set out building with beautiful greenery out the back and worth treating with respect.

I had a plasterer around last week, who said he used horse hair and lime putty bought in, but he said he could see most plasterers not wanting such a job and... he hasn't returned a quote! I left a message yesterday but no response.

So that's the story. Thanks, as I say, for any advice!

From hallway downstairs

The building regs confuses me, as behind the stair string and under the stairs, is still original non asbestos lime plaster. And if you look at the external wall from outside the house, it includes the kitchen running back and the bathroom upstairs. There is a tall double glazed window in the landing too.

I see you say scratch coat of lime 8-10mm Nick. Ok if I can get anyone to do that, but a 100mm woodfibre board, plus lime finish would massively encroach the stair width! 🤔😩

So if I'm correct, the rough calculations for the external brick wall (within the hallway area) are 29.7m² - 4.6m² for the triangular area of the staircase (which I've halved from the rectangular area). Remove the front bedroom area of 6.5m² too, leaves 18.6m² of brick wall.

50% of the 29.7m² total rectanglular area is 14.85m² making the wall over 50% by 3.75m². 😔

But again, the brick wall from the outside of the house is much larger as takes in the kitchen and upstairs bathroom walls, which are still plastered. So I don't get it?

Also... If it is just the external walls that come under BRs, does that mean that I can at least get the internal walls plasterboarded and not need to super insulate those?

Again, it will be tricky next to the front door, as there isn't really the room to build out a 100mm insulation layer, as there would be no room for the light switch next to the door.

I'd just like to get a radiator back on in the hall for Winter.

Internal walls don't need insulation.

The internal wall looks ready to receive plaster board - so go for it !

By the way the doors look good as does the floor !!

Ok. I'll hold off and get on with the internal walls as soon as I can find regular plasterer for that. Originally I was having all brick downstairs done in insulating lime. Was so looking forward to nice solid sounding walls down there vs plasterboard but beggars can't be choosers!

Posted By: Peter_in_HungaryIf you select HTML at the bottom of the comments box the quotes come out in blue which makes the post a bit better.
And I wouldn't email the building regs dept.!!

I feel your pain. I have projects that are months behind schedule, due to normally reliable tradesmen behaving like complete morons, cause they have too many jobs, and can't work out how to prioritise in a mature, professional way...and I've been in construction management for 30 years.

From what I can see you have 2 external walls to refinish. Stair wall, and a small bit around the door.

In your shoes, I would stick with the insulated plaster. You only have maybe 25mm to play with, (judging by the stair stringer), and around the door is such a small area, that the important thing will be to ensure you insulate and seal very well around the door frame. Also look carefully at the junction at floor level and into the floor void, as I bet there's lots of cold air blowing around under your lovely timber floor.

If you want to make your life more of a misery, start involving all sorts of different insulation boards and construction techniques. That will scare off most tradesmen. Pretty much every tradesman around here is taking no more work till next year.

- so you may have to wait
- you may have to accept that this area of wall has a rubbish level of insulation

Insulated lime plaster, and get on with your life. Good luck.

Posted By: kristevaConsider using gypsum plaster for the internal walls

+1
No need to have breathable finish in internal walls and (gypsum) plaster will sound and feel a lot more solid than plaster board.

In your position Id leave things as they are til next spring and spend the autumn/winter sorting out the detail of what youre going to do and getting trades in place to do what you want. Maybe paint a coat of sealant on the walls to keep dust down.

Plastering down to the top of floor boards wont stop draughts from under the floor so maybe look at dealing with those before plastering.

Posted By: BiscuitsAndTeaI'd just like to get a radiator back on in the hall for Winter.

That should be possible. Just put the radiator back in place and open the isolating valves. It's a DIY job, or a quick job for a plumber. Unless there is something complicated? A picture would help

Posted By: kristevamy BC certainly wasn't interested in my bare external walls (the entire downstairs)

Not sure if you can ask for an different BCO, but a bit concerning that hes way behind the times.

Posted By: kristeva

Posted By: philedge

Posted By: kristevamy BC certainly wasn't interested in my bare external walls (the entire downstairs)

Not sure if you can ask for an different BCO, but a bit concerning that hes way behind the times.

I must admit I was a bit surprised, but I think he took into account the age of the house, the difficulty of IWI, and the thickness of wood fibre insulation I was planning to use and was happy with the compromise.

I don't remember your circumstances but it sounds like the BCO did take an interest in the insulation and discussed it with you and was then happy to use his discretion? But probably best discussed elsewhere rathe than in this topic.

It's a shame they removed the lime plaster. Artex can generally be removed by making it very wet and peeling it off.

Trades do seem tricky to get this year (and last). I'm delaying work because I don't want to spend 4 times the normal price.

As said If it's an interior wall there is no need for insulation. If it's an exterior wall there is a lot of insulation benefit in the wall being bone dry. Lime built properties (with no exterior plastic paint or cement pointing) tend to be bone dry. Modern walls are soaking wet. Impervious bricks, mortars and paints prevent the wall from drying. The bad U value is assumed for modern construction.

It is good practice to maintain lime throughout - inside and outside. Outside is a lot more important for drying the walls. For inside it's pleasant if excess moisture is absorbed by the wall then hopefully ejected outside or released back inside when it's more dry in there. Lime is good for that. You don't get the mould you get on new builds.

I certainly wouldn't tell building regs what you are doing. Building out the wall with insulation will cause all sorts of trouble on the stairs.