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Plastering looks like a low-hazard trade until you notice where it happens. Almost all of it is inside somebody else’s finished building, with their floors, furniture and belongings a few feet from a mixer, a wet wall and a run of water. In Cardiff that means the inner-suburb terraces of Roath, Cathays, Canton, Grangetown and Splott — solid-walled, built in the coal-export decades, and now overwhelmingly rented.
The money that goes wrong is not an injury. It is water tracking into a finished ceiling below, a skim that blows and has to come off again, dust getting through an occupied office or flat, and a slip on a wet floor in a client’s hallway. On solid-walled Victorian stock with damp and salt-contaminated substrates, the difference between a skim that lasts and one that fails is a judgement you make on site — and the client experiences the failure as your fault whether or not it was.
Apex is a Bristol-based commercial broker. We arrange plastering and drylining cover that reflects working inside occupied buildings on difficult substrates, placed by a named broker who will present the risk properly.
The city’s stock divides fairly sharply between solid-walled Victorian and Edwardian terraces and modern commercial and residential development, and a plasterer’s risk is different in each.
Water is the plasterer’s claim. Mixing, washing out and wet materials introduce a great deal of water into a finished building. A spill or an overflow on a first floor finds the ceiling below within minutes, and the claim covers decoration, flooring and belongings rather than the value of the skim.
Dust travels further than people expect. Cutting and sanding board produces fine dust that gets into adjoining rooms, offices and flats through gaps you did not know were there. In occupied commercial premises this can mean cleaning contractors, damaged equipment and complaints from other tenants. It is also a genuine health exposure for your own people, which underwriters ask about.
Working in Wales. Building regulations in Wales are made separately from those in England, so the requirements affecting insulation, render systems and fabric work should be checked against the Welsh position. Landlord clients also operate under Welsh private-rented-sector licensing, which is why letting agents here can be particular about the paperwork they want from trades.
Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) and respirable crystalline silica duties — dust from mixing, cutting and sanding board and render is one of the main health issues in the trade, and RPE and extraction are expected.
Work at Height Regulations 2005 duties — ceiling work, hop-ups, towers and external render scaffold.
Manual handling assessment for boards, bags and mixers, which is where a large share of the trade’s employers’ liability claims begin.
CDM 2015 duties on larger contracts, and main-contractor requirements on commercial fit-out.
Building regulations in Wales are made separately from those in England, so energy and fabric requirements affecting external and internal insulation work should be checked against the Welsh position rather than assumed.
Water from mixing or washing out escapes on an upper floor and damages the ceiling, decoration and contents below — public liability.
A skim blows on a damp or salt-contaminated solid wall and has to come off and be redone — the redoing is your cost; consequential damage may be a claim.
Dust from cutting and sanding travels into an occupied office or a neighbouring flat — public liability, including cleaning and equipment damage.
A client, tenant or another trade slips on a wet floor in a hallway or stair — public liability, and one of the more common injury claims in this trade.
Boards, bags and installed work on site are ruined by water before hand-over — contract works.
A worker is injured lifting boards or bags, or falls from stilts or a hop-up — employers’ liability, with manual handling and work at height both in scope.
No — putting right your own defective work is not what liability insurance does. What it can respond to is damage caused to other property as a result, such as flooring or decoration ruined in the process. On solid-walled terraces the practical protection is recording the background condition and what you advised before you started.
This is the one to check. Many liability policies treat the item being worked on differently from surrounding property, and for a plasterer the item being worked on is most of the room. We look specifically at how a wording handles that rather than assuming it is covered.
Time pressure and shared space. Fixed re-let dates, other trades in the building and part-occupied houses are the conditions in which spills, dust and slips happen. Letting agents in Wales also tend to ask for documentation before instructing, so make sure your certificates describe plastering and drylining explicitly.
In two ways. Dust reaching other parts of an occupied building produces third-party claims for cleaning and damaged equipment. And respirable dust from board and render is one of the trade’s main health exposures, which underwriters will ask about — extraction, RPE and how you segregate the work area.
They come with system conditions on weather, temperature and substrate that a warranty depends on. If you apply outside those conditions and the system fails, the argument is about workmanship. Recording site conditions and following the system requirements is what protects you.
If they work under your direction, on your job, with your equipment, then generally yes, and compulsory employers’ liability applies even where they invoice you. Only genuinely independent firms working to their own methods sit outside it.
Tell us about your business and we’ll place it on the specialist market — or leave your number and a named broker calls you back, usually the same working day.
