Has anyone else had absolute gut full of poxy plasterers?! I’m a professional decorator and it’s my job to follow these cowboys and transform a room from a building site, to a home.
I turned up on a job to paint a freshly plastered ceiling. I was spraying it, and even said to the client “whoever plastered ceiling is rough”. He told me to “do what you can.”
Put 1st coat on it looked like the surface of the moon, filled it, sanded it, sprayed it, no lights fitted yet. I even used Tikkurila Anti-Reflex to paint it.
A month after I had finished the job he rang me to say he’s not happy with ceiling now lights are on. “It’s uneven, can you come back fill it and start again.”
Looked at another job last night same thing, this time I refused to do it, apparently the customer was told “a good deccy will sort it”.
Can’t believe how bad the plastering trade has become!! I’m just sick of bad plastering!! 😡😡😡
On new plaster, I spray the mist coat before any 2nd fixing takes place. I then say to main contractor ‘this is your chance to get the plasterer back to put any defects of his work right’. Luckily, they now incorporate this in all the sites I do for them. The defect is not the decorators, but the defect can’t be seen until it has a coat of paint. Make them aware of the issue before you do your mist coat. The issue then lays with the main contractor and the Plasterer/ Plastering Contractor.
I refuse to put sh*t plastering right. No matter how much they tell me, or pay, I still refuse? They did it so they put it right. As soon as you fill it then it becomes your problem. I mist it, then tell the agent to check it, once he’s satisfied then I tell him to call me. I’ve been caught out too many times to let it carry on.
Most sites these days think it’s the norm for us to come in and spray the ceilings and then get the patcher in, before we have to then spray again, it’s a real p*ss take.
Only this week, we started a flat that we had sprayed the second coat on, the patcher had supposedly done his best after our first coat had gone on. We resprayed it and I asked the question whether everyone now thought the ceilings were acceptable, about five week later we start the first cut in around the top of the walls only for a patcher to come in to skim the whole ceiling with Easi-Fill.
Bring back the days when we could spray the ceilings to a finish in one application.
It’s all because the lazy f$$kers can’t and won’t use a steel trowel to polish up. Instead use a 2 foot rubber trowel whish only flows over the humps and bumps….
So why do these bad plasterers still get paid? I think on domestic jobs, or even new-builds, a client should retain a certain percentage of a plasterers fee until they have seen the work after a coat of paint on it. I’m not trying to sh1t on all plasterers or make it more difficult for them, but why are we being made responsible for their shoddy work??
Is it even a decorator’s job to fix bad plastering? A plasterer has only one job, to plaster. If he or she can’t do it to a high standard, then what’s the point? I’d put my foot down and tell the client they need to get the ceiling skimmed.
We got sick of bad plastering over 10 years ago , now we use spray plaster ourselves we get a better finish and no comeback.