Lime Plastering/Pointing Rates

[andycarne]

Hi Everyone,
This is my first post on the forum, though I've been following it for some time soaking up all your good advice.
I'm close to completing a two year apprenticeship in earth building and lime plastering with the Traditional Skills Bursary Scheme and I'm about to take some tentative steps towards self-employment specializing in lime work.
I was wondering if anyone could advise me of the going rates for lime plastering and pointing. The company I work for are based in West Cornwall and charge around £65 m2 for lime rendering, including materials. Does this seem reasonable for a rural area? I've found a huge variation of rates when I've looked online, although some of the quoted rates are a good few years out of date.
I'm based in South East Cornwall which isn't a particularly affluent corner of the county and with current price rises and financial uncertainty I'm keen to offer a realistic rate.
I'd be grateful of any input you could give me about prices you charge or have paid.
Thanks,

Andy

 

[Penners]

Welcome to forum, Andy, and best wishes for your chosen career. It's good to hear of someone wanting to continue and boost the availability of traditional skills that are so important to our architectural heritage.

That said, I apologise for the fact that I can't be of any help to you with the information that you seek. Sorry. I'm sure others will be more forthcoming.

 

[vicky whitworth]

Welcome Andy, I'm in East Devon (another quite poor, rural area) and that rate you quote sounds a little low but around here the price varies according to two things:
What you are actually doing? ie: internal or external work, pointing or plastering, harling or rendering.
And who's doing it? We have some 'jobbing' plasterers who say they do lime work but they don't really ie: they say,'well it's just the same as any other plastering only with lime'. These are the ones I wouldn't go near, and then you have the guys who have a good reputation.

Why don't you ring some of the well known lime workers and ask them what they charge? You don't have to 'fess up to being a competitor just an interested punter.

 

[andycarne]

Thanks Vicky,
I will ring around. I know from experience that other factors other than m2 would affect the pricing of a job, such as the amount of dubbing out required or the hacking off and raking out of bad cement pointing which can take longer than the pointing itself. I think the £65m2 my company quoted is for an external render and of course I'll speak to them in more detail about their charges before I finish my training in March.