Skimming
Skimming on the Wirral
A thin finish coat over a wall that is structurally fine but whose surface has had decades of paper, filler and paint. The quickest route from tired to paintable.
- Written quote
- Drying days given up front
- Floors covered first
Skimming
When a skim is the right answer
Skimming is a finish coat, two or three millimetres of it, laid over a surface that is already sound. It is not a repair and it does not fix a wall that has lost its grip. What it does is take a wall that is solid but ugly and give you a flat surface you can paint.
It is the right answer far more often than people expect. Most walls that look beyond saving are sound underneath: what has failed is forty years of wallpaper, filler, nicotine and three different paints. Those come off, the wall is stabilised and bonded so the new coat has something to grip, and then it is skimmed.
The preparation is most of the job and it is the part that gets skipped in a cheap quote. Paper comes off, every piece of it. Loose material comes off. The wall is sealed so it does not suck the water out of the skim before it can be worked. Skimming straight over paper is how you get a finish that lifts off in sheets a few months later. Often asked about alongside ceilings, artex removal and plasterboarding and dry lining.
Get a price for the skim
A skim over hollow plaster fails with the plaster underneath it. The tap test comes first and it decides whether this is the job at all.
Paper off, loose material off, surface sealed and bonded. Most of the time on a skim is spent before any finish is laid.
Raking daylight across a long wall finds everything. A room with a big window is a different standard from a hallway, and it is worth saying so.
Done across Wallasey, Bebington, Bromborough, and everywhere else on the peninsula.
Skimming on the Wirral
What this job looks like
Example images of the kind of work described, each one labelled as such. They are not photographs of our own jobs and nothing here is borrowed from anybody else's. Our own photographs go in as jobs are finished and customers are happy for us to use them.
Why people use us
What is included
The preparation is in the price rather than an extra discovered on the first morning.
- Wallpaper stripped and taken away
- Surface stabilised and bonded before the finish coat
- Edges, reveals and sockets cut in
- Drying time stated so you know when to mist coat
Frequently asked questions
Skimming: the questions people ask
The ones that come up most. If yours is not here, ring and ask.
Can you skim over wallpaper?
No. It comes off first, all of it. Skimming over paper traps the paper between the wall and the new finish, and when the paper eventually lets go it takes the skim and your paint with it.
Can you skim over painted walls?
Yes, once the paint is sound and the surface has been bonded. Flaking or powdery paint comes off first. Gloss needs keying or bonding or the skim has nothing to hold on to.
How soon can I paint a skimmed wall?
When it is dry all the way through, which shows as an even pale colour rather than dark patches. That is usually several days and can be longer in winter or on a thick coat. The first coat is a watered down mist coat, because full strength emulsion sits on the surface and peels.
Is skimming cheaper than replastering?
Considerably, because nothing is coming off and going in a skip. That is exactly why the tap test matters: a skim quoted on a wall that actually needs stripping is a cheap number that turns into a different job.
Done across Wallasey, Bebington, Bromborough, and everywhere else on the peninsula.
Send a photo of the wall
Most rooms people assume need replastering need a skim, and a photograph usually tells us which yours is.
About Wirral Plastering
How the work is actually organised
Wirral Plastering takes the job as main contractor and puts the labour on it. That means one person quotes it, one person is answerable for it, and you are not chasing three numbers to find out who is coming on Tuesday.
It is worth saying plainly rather than implying a van and a family name, because the way a job is run changes what you can expect from it. What you get is a written scope, a date, and somebody whose problem it is if the date moves.
What we will tell you we are not
Damp proofing is a different trade and so is stone repair, and both come up constantly on Wirral housing. We do the plastering that follows damp work and the lime render that sits around stone, and we will tell you when the thing you are describing needs somebody else first.
Structural work is the same. A crack that runs in a line rather than a map pattern is not a plastering question and filling it is not an answer.
No photographs of our work, and why the site says so
There are no job photographs on this site. The slots are placeholders and they are labelled as placeholders. Nothing here is a stock picture presented as a job and nothing is borrowed from another company's gallery.
Real photographs go in as jobs are finished and customers are happy for us to use them, and not before. The same goes for anything that looks like a customer quote. There is a section built and ready for them, switched off, and it stays that way until there are real ones with permission attached.
Get in touch
Tell us what the wall or ceiling is doing and roughly how much of it there is. A photograph on the form answers half the questions before anybody rings you back.
- Phone0151 453 8836
- Emailcontact@wirralplastering.com
- WhatsAppSend us a photo of the job
- Based inWirral, Merseyside
- HoursMon to Fri 8 to 6, Sat 8 to 2, closed Sunday