Drywall vs Plaster Walls in the UK: Plasterboard, Lath and What Each Really Costs

Knock on the wall behind your sofa. A hollow, drum-like note means plasterboard, the material Americans call drywall, screwed to timber studs or stuck to brickwork on dabs of adhesive. A dull thud means wet plaster on masonry. A springy sound and grey dust at the skirting means lath and plaster, and a house built before about 1930.

Which one you have decides what you can hang, how a crack behaves, and what a plasterer charges to put it right. There is a section at the end for tenants, who cannot legally drill anything.

Drywall is the American word for plasterboard: a gypsum core wrapped in paper, sold here in 9.5mm and 12.5mm sheets for £11 to £16 a board. What differs is the finish. American boards are taped and jointed, so only the seams get filled, while here the whole surface takes a 2 to 3mm skim of multi-finish plaster. That is why a British plasterboard wall still has a real plaster face, and still cracks like one.

• •Plasterboard on studs: timber or metal at 400 or 600mm centres. Standard for partitions since the 1960s.
• •Dot-and-dab: board stuck to brick on walnut-sized dabs, leaving a 10 to 25mm void. Near-universal since the late 1970s.
• •Wet plaster on masonry: a bonding or browning undercoat trowelled onto brick, then skimmed. Dead solid, no void. Most pre-1970s external walls.
• •Lath and plaster: 25mm timber laths with 6mm gaps and three coats of lime plaster. Pre-1930s ceilings. Drill it and you get grey dust and horsehair.

• •Speed: board and skim takes a mist coat in five to seven days. Two-coat wet plaster needs three to six weeks to dry first.
• •Hardness: solid plaster wins outright. A door handle punches clean through 12.5mm board.
• •Sound: a stud wall with one 12.5mm board each side gives about 30 to 35dB; plastered brick gives 45 to 50dB.
• •Fixings: masonry takes a plug and screw anywhere. Plasterboard needs a stud or a proper hollow-wall fixing.
• •Insulation and fire: dot-and-dab takes 62.5mm insulated laminate in a day, and boarded walls give the 30 minutes of resistance required beside an integral garage.

The commonest call-out here is a shelf on the floor with two plasterboard plugs still attached. On solid plaster, a 7mm hole, a brown nylon plug and a 50mm screw carry a loaded bookcase. On plasterboard, find the stud and screw into timber: the only fixing worth trusting above roughly 15kg. Without a stud, a spring toggle or Gripit-style fixing in 12.5mm board is rated to tens of kilos on the packet: halve that figure, and never hang a television on board alone.

Damp differs too. On board, a leak shows as a tea-coloured stain that softens the paper; on wet plaster you get a blown patch that looks perfect but sounds hollow when tapped. On pre-1919 solid brick, gypsum and dot-and-dab trap moisture behind an impermeable face, and the cold void is where condensation and mould take hold. Lime is the right repair there.

Plasterer day rates run £180 to £280 across most of the UK, £250 to £350 inside the M25. Most of this work is priced per square metre.

• •Skim over sound plaster: £13 to £20 per m², or £180 to £300 for a 12 to 14m² ceiling.
• •Dot-and-dab plasterboard plus skim: £40 to £60 per m² supplied and fitted.
• •New stud partition, boarded and skimmed both sides: £45 to £70 per m², plus £120 to £250 for a lining and door.
• •Hack off and re-plaster masonry: £55 to £85 per m², plus £150 to £300 for waste.
• •Overboarding a lath-and-plaster ceiling: £45 to £65 per m², two days for one room.
• •DIY materials: 25kg of multi-finish £12 to £15, bonding coat £10 to £13.

Boarding is realistic DIY; skimming is not, because the working time on multi-finish is about 90 minutes and beginners lose it at the trowelling-up stage. Board it yourself, pay for half a day of skimming, and you still save 30 to 40 per cent. Patching a hole in plasterboard is a first-timer job. Over a decade, this is what we get called back to.

• •Stud wall in a family hallway: two door-handle punctures and a shelf pull-out. About £25 of materials as DIY, £160 to £280 for two handyman visits.
• •Dot-and-dab room: nothing until a radiator or washing machine leaks, then £120 to £200 for a square metre.
• •Wet-plastered masonry: nothing for years, then one blown patch beside a chimney breast at £350 to £600 for that wall.
• •Lath and plaster ceiling: the expensive one. Overboarding 14m² runs £630 to £910 before decorating, and it is a question of when, not if.

None of that helps if the wall is not yours. Treat every hole, adhesive scar and coin of pulled-off paint as a deduction, because deposit adjudicators do.

• •Identify the wall first: hollow plasterboard is less forgiving of adhesive hooks, because the skim is thin and the paper beneath tears.
• •Command-type strips hold 2 to 7kg a pair, but only on emulsion cured four weeks or more. Fresh matt emulsion is the classic deposit-loser: test one behind a door, and remove by pulling the tab straight down.
• •Use the picture rail: most Victorian and Edwardian homes still have one at about 2m, and brass S-hooks on cord carry a heavy mirror without touching the plaster.
• •Go freestanding: leaning mirrors, tension rods in reveals, ladder shelves, plug-in lights clipped to the skirting.
• •If you drill, get written permission, then make good: fine surface filler, 180-grit and a tester pot costs about £8 against a £40 to £80 deduction.
• •Photograph every wall at check-in with the date visible. Our rental-friendly decor guide covers floors and lighting too.

Plasterboard and skim wins for anything internal, non-structural and dry: faster, cheaper, easier to insulate and far easier to repair. Wet plaster on masonry wins on external walls where solidity, sound and fixings matter, with lime on solid walls in anything pre-1919.

The exception is a sound lath-and-plaster ceiling with original cornice, where overboarding buries the detail permanently: repair old plaster instead. Hairline cracking at the wall-to-ceiling junction that opens each winter is seasonal movement: flexible caulk holds where filler fails. If a crack keeps coming back mid-board, the fixings or scrim tape are at fault. Get quotes priced per square metre rather than as a lump sum, and use our DIY and maintenance hub for the repair guides.

• •Can I dot-and-dab over old plaster? Only where it is sound and dry — board over anything blown and you pay twice to hide the problem.
• •Does plasterboard make a room colder? Not by itself, but air moves behind a dot-and-dab void; sealing the perimeter dab line cuts draughts.
• •Is textured Artex a problem? If the house predates 2000, treat it as potentially asbestos-containing and never sand it.
• •Which adds value at resale? Neither. Cracked, patched or sagging is what costs you at survey.