Impact holes, cracked boards and leak-damaged ceilings are the routine plasterboard repairs Lian Construction handles across London walls, ceilings and partitions. Weak material is replaced, joints made good, and the surface left ready for decorating.
Ealing overview
Plasterboard Repair in Ealing
West London borough benefiting from Wembley-area regeneration, with consistent buy-to-let refurbishment activity. Ealing falls well within the West London ground Lian Construction covers on a regular basis. For plasterboard and ceiling repairs in Ealing, that local knowledge means fewer surprises once work is on site and a team that already understands the borough's typical property stock.
Ealing's housing stock reflects its position as an established West London suburb that grew steadily through the Victorian and Edwardian periods before filling out further between the wars. Expect a mix of Victorian and Edwardian terraces and semi-detached houses, along with a good number of 1920s and 1930s bay-fronted semis typical of outer London's interwar expansion. Purpose-built mansion blocks and low-rise flats sit alongside the houses in many areas, and more recent infill development has added flats and townhouses on smaller sites over the decades. Properties of this age generally come with the usual list of refurbishment needs: ageing roofs, single-glazed or early double-glazed windows, dated wiring and plumbing, and layouts that often don't suit modern living without some reconfiguration. Loft conversions and rear or side extensions are common ways owners add space rather than move. As with much of outer London, condition varies a lot street to street depending on when a property last had significant work done, which is worth bearing in mind when planning a refurbishment budget or scope.
Regeneration activity around the Wembley area has had a knock-on effect on demand in neighbouring parts of West London, including Ealing, as buyers and renters look slightly further out for value while still wanting reasonable access to improving transport and amenities. This tends to support steady interest in rental property, and landlords in the borough have kept up a fairly consistent pace of refurbishment work, whether that's turning round properties between tenancies, upgrading kitchens and bathrooms to hold rents at a competitive level, or bringing older stock up to current standards for letting. For homeowners, the same regeneration effect can make extending or improving an existing property more attractive than moving, particularly where nearby development is pushing up expectations for finish quality. Because Ealing sees this kind of ongoing buy-to-let and owner-occupier refurbishment demand, competition among contractors for smaller and mid-sized jobs can be steady rather than sparse, so landlords and homeowners are often weighing up contractors on reliability and turnaround time as much as price. Getting quotes early and being clear about scope tends to help avoid delays, especially for landlords working to a fixed window between tenants.
Typical plasterboard repair prices in London
Item
Typical range
Small hole patch (under 0.3 sqm)
£120–£220
Medium repair (0.3–2 sqm)
£220–£450
Full room reinstatement
£450–£900
Plastering / re-skim per room (wet plaster)
£450–£750
Lath & plaster ceiling repair/replacement, per sqm
£45–£75/sqm
General London market guidance, not a fixed quote — actual pricing depends on a site survey. Full breakdown: cost guide.
Ceiling repairs versus wall repairs
Ceiling and wall repairs share the same basic technique but behave differently in practice. Ceiling board is fixed to joists rather than studs and carries its own weight against gravity, so a poorly supported ceiling repair is more likely to sag or crack along the joint than an equivalent wall repair, and larger ceiling sections sometimes need noggins added between joists to give the new board proper fixing points. Access is usually more awkward too, particularly in a stairwell or over a bath, which affects how long a ceiling job realistically takes compared with the equivalent wall repair. Wall repairs have their own quirks, a repair near a corner or a door reveal needs the corner bead or architrave treated carefully so the finished line stays straight, and a repair on a partition wall sometimes needs checking for what's inside the void, insulation, cabling or pipework, before simply boarding back over it. Corners and reveals are worth getting right the first time too, a slightly out-of-true corner bead or a poorly aligned architrave junction is far more noticeable to the eye than an imperfection in the middle of a flat wall, since our eyes naturally track straight lines and edges before they register a flat surface. Partition voids are worth a quick check before boarding back over them too, particularly in an older property where a previous owner or a past electrician may have left cabling or pipework in a location that isn't obvious from a plan, and finding that during a repair rather than after the wall is closed up saves having to open it straight back up again. Photographing the void before closing it back up is a small step that's genuinely worth doing, since a quick photo of exactly where cables and pipes run behind a wall saves a lot of guesswork for whoever next needs to put a shelf bracket or a picture hook into that same section of wall.
When a repair should become a full reboard
A contained repair isn't always the most sensible option, and it's worth knowing when a full reboard makes more sense than another patch. If damage is spread across a significant proportion of a ceiling or wall, several separate patches end up costing more in materials, labour and disruption than simply stripping and reboarding the whole surface in one go, and the finish is usually better too, since a single continuous skim avoids multiple joint lines that can telegraph through paint over time. Old lath and plaster ceilings, common in Victorian and Edwardian properties, are a particular case, patching a small section of lath and plaster is possible but increasingly impractical as the material ages and becomes brittle, and converting to plasterboard during a repair is often the more durable long-term option even though it's a bigger job upfront. The ceiling void itself is also worth a look while it's open on an old lath and plaster ceiling, since these voids sometimes hold historic debris, old wiring no longer in use, or evidence of past water ingress that's useful to know about before boarding everything back up out of sight. We'll always give you the choice with a clear comparison of cost and outcome, rather than defaulting to the larger job automatically. Rewiring or replumbing projects often tip the balance towards a full reboard too, since if enough of a ceiling or wall already needs opening up to run new cables or pipes, it's frequently more sensible to reboard the whole surface while it's already exposed than to patch around several separate access points afterwards. Insulation upgrades sometimes tip the decision the same way, since adding insulation behind a wall or above a ceiling as part of a wider improvement usually means the existing board has to come down anyway, at which point reboarding the whole surface costs little more than patching around the disturbed sections and gives a noticeably better finish.
Ceiling, wall and partition board repairsLeak-damaged plasterboard removed and replacedNeat jointing, skimming and making-goodRegular coverage of Ealing and the wider West London area
Signs to look for
Do you need plasterboard repair in Ealing?
A bathroom, kitchen or utility area still has standard board fitted where moisture-resistant board would clearly be more appropriate given the ongoing humidity and steam.
An HMO bedroom, garage wall or protected escape route doesn't appear to have fire-rated board fitted where Building Regulations would normally require it.
Damage is spread across more than one section of a ceiling or wall rather than confined to a single small, contained area.
An old lath and plaster ceiling is cracking, sagging or shedding material and needs assessing for repair or a full replacement with plasterboard, particularly if it's original to the property.
How the work is handled in Ealing
Step 1Cut out damaged board
Step 2Install suitable replacement board
Step 3Tape, joint and skim
Step 4Prepare the surface for paint
Questions
Plasterboard Repair questions in Ealing
How quickly can Lian start plasterboard and ceiling repairs in Ealing?
Ealing is part of our regular West London coverage, so once we've surveyed the property we can usually confirm a start date quickly. Send the address and scope and we'll arrange the next step.
Do you cover all of Ealing?
Yes. Ealing falls within the area Lian Construction serves across Greater London.
Do you carry out refurbishments for landlords with tenants moving out soon?
Yes, this is a fairly regular type of job for us. If you can give us the moving-out date as early as possible we can look at scheduling around it, though exact timing depends on scope of work and our current workload. For a straightforward refresh (redecoration, minor repairs, kitchen or bathroom updates) a week or two is often realistic, but larger works will need more notice and a proper site visit to confirm.
Can plasterboard repair work be combined with painting and decorating?
Yes. Once the skim coat has fully dried, the surface is ready for a mist coat and decoration, and we can either hand back a ready-to-decorate surface or include the painting as part of the same job if that's more convenient. Combining the two avoids a gap between trades where you're left with a bare, unpainted patch, and it also means whoever does the painting has full knowledge of exactly what was repaired and where, which helps if a slight variation in the finish needs a second coat to fully even out.
What causes plasterboard to crack again after a previous repair?
The most common cause is a joint that wasn't taped and jointed properly the first time, filler alone over a crack without scrim tape underneath will reopen with normal building movement. Structural movement in the property, an unsupported board edge, or the wrong type of joint compound for the job can all cause a repeat crack too. If a repair keeps failing in the same spot, it's worth having it looked at properly rather than filling it again, since something in the original repair or the structure behind it likely needs addressing rather than just the surface. We'll open up the previous repair to establish exactly why it failed before doing it again, rather than simply layering another skim coat over the same underlying problem, since that approach almost never actually solves it.
Can you repair a hole in a plasterboard ceiling?
Yes. We repair ceiling holes, replace damaged sections and make the area ready for redecoration, matching the surrounding board thickness so the finish sits flush. Small holes from things like a light fitting change or a curtain pole removal are usually a quick, same-visit job, while larger sections need the replacement board properly fixed to joists rather than just filled.
Talk to Lian Construction about Ealing
Send the site address in Ealing, photos if available, and the plasterboard repair work you need. We can review the scope and arrange the next step.