Crafty Plasterer

About Aagaard Hanley

Robert Aagaard and Ted Hanley founded Aagaard Hanley in 1979. Working from the Owlcoates Centre in Leeds the small firm had only 3 members of staff. In 1986 Robert Aagaard retired and soon after, in 1991 the firm relocated to Bramley.

The site in Stanningley Road was derelict and Aagaard Hanley was awarded £50,000 in government grant aid to develop it and consequently restore it back to an employment site.

Aagaard Hanley now employs 25 members of staff and is a successful business and one of the few plastering companies with full ISO Quality Control Systems.

Over the years Aagaard Hanley has won many awards, these include: the Scottish Award in 1997 for work on the Edinburgh Sheriff Courts, and the 1998 Regional award for work in the Glasgow Courts.

Plaster's past

I didn't know I was going to be an expert in plastering, but seeing as Aagaard Hanley is an award winning manufacturer of fibrous plaster and supplier of polished plaster and lighting products; I thought I'd better learn...

Yet, what is fibrous plaster and where does it come from?

Plaster is a relatively harmless dry powder made from gypsum rock. The mineral gypsum is commonly found. In Britain, the most frequently found type is alabaster. Gypsum is white or pale grey in colour and occurs in sedimentary beds or veins, these range in thickness from a few inches to 30 feet. Gypsum rock is fairly soft and it can be scratched with a fingernail. There are many uses for this, for example in plastic and also in food, such as baking powder. However, its uses as a building material and as a craft material are the most well known.

Gypsum plaster is not by any means a modern invention, there is evidence of it being used by the Egyptians in some of the pyramids. In Britain there are indications that shipments of plaster of Paris were being imported in Henry VIII's reign.

By studying the history of plaster and it's development over the years, it allows specialists at Aagaard Hanley to ensure that repairs on old bulidings, such as ceiling roses and cornices, turn out to the best possible standard.

Revenge of the builder

Builders have a reputation of not starting a job when they should, making a mess and charging over the odds. But is this fair? According to an article in the Sunday Times Homes supplement Builders Bite Back, builders tell a different story. Is it actually clients and homeowners who are not keeping their end of the bargain? Many job delays are actually beyond builders' control, such as bad weather, clients ordering custom made materials or being slow with decisions. Often builders are not good at communicating the way they work and this leads to misconceptions. It could well be the client who is the cause.

The ten simple rules to help you get your job done on time and stay on good terms with your builders are:

1. Give them space (clear up before they arrive)
2. Don't use their tools (especially filling the skip up) as this will cause delays
3. Make decisions quickly
4. Don't put them in the middle of differences of opinion of husband and wife
5. Don't change your mind
6. Don't ask for little extras
7. Don't hold back full payment at the end of the job only unfinished work
8. Don't be greedy and try to get 'summat for nowt'
9. Show some respect (shouldn't this be number one?)
10. Communicate what you want and show appreciation when the jobs right

It all boils down to common sense and courtesy at the end of the day!

New blog

Hi, my name's Karen Marshall from Bruce Marshall Associates public relations consultancy. We're helping Aagaard Hanley to set up its new blog Crafty Plasterer. The blog will be about all aspects of interior design, lighting, plastering, building and restoration. In fact anything that's remotely connected with what Aagaard Hanley does, which is create beautiful and functional objects out of plaster. This covers a broad range of activity from manufacturing a wide range of plaster lighting to helping to restore the plaster work in historic buildings and creating new plasterwork interiors in modern buildings.

Starter packs compulsory for home sellers

A date has now been confirmed by the government for the launch of home starter packs. The packs will include a survey, land registry details and answers from both the sellers and local authority to standard questions. From 1 June 2007 the packs will be compulsory for anyone selling their home. The government says the packs will cost about £600 plus VAT and will make home buying quicker and cheaper. The idea of introducing such packs has been discussed in the industry since the early 1990s. The conveyancing system in England and Wales is widely regarded as unnecessarily slow and expensive. In particular, would-be buyers can spend hundreds of pounds on surveys and other enquiries only to find their money has been wasted because the proposed property sale has fallen through. The aim of the packs is to eradicate this problem.