Business parks and commercial fit-outs
Burgess Hill has a large commercial side as well as its housing. The 2004 Mid Sussex Local Plan described the Victoria Industrial Estate as one of the major employment sites in the county, and the town also has Sheddingdean Business Park and Maltings Park. The Victoria Business Park stands on the site of the old Victoria Pleasure Gardens. Offices, showrooms and units like these are where metal stud partitions and suspended metal frame ceilings come into their own: quick to build, straight and level, with a void above for cabling, ducts and insulation. We board and skim them as one package, so the trade that builds the walls also finishes them, and the boarding sequence is planned around the other trades on the programme.
Sound between homes and beside the railway
The railway runs right through the town. Burgess Hill has two stations, Burgess Hill and Wivelsfield, on the London to Brighton line and the branch to Lewes, and road traffic has to cross the tracks at Station Road or Leylands Road. Homes close to the line, flats in the town centre and semis or terraces where the neighbour's television comes through the party wall all benefit from proper sound proofing. That means heavier acoustic board, sound-deadening insulation in the cavity, independent frames where space allows, and every gap at sockets and perimeters sealed. Fire protection follows the same logic, with fire-resistant board and sealed junctions between flats and between an integral garage and the house.
Lofts and extensions in post-war houses
The town's population almost doubled in the 1950s, and much of its housing dates from the decades that followed. A loft conversion or an extension on a house of that age is a typical boarding job: rafter insulation, lined slopes and flat ceilings, knee walls in the eaves, and fire-resistant board where building control requires it. On a cold outside wall, insulated plasterboard can line the room without losing much space. Insulation might be Celotex boards, rock wool or EPS depending on the space and the target. Where a solid wall would serve the room better, float and set plastering in Burgess Hill explains the wet alternative.
New homes at Brookleigh
Brookleigh, the new neighbourhood led by Homes England on the town's northern edge, has outline permission for up to 3,500 homes. Bellway, building some of the first, says its homes there use timber frames and panels with brickwork added on site. Timber frame houses are boarded inside, so if you own a new home and later want to move a doorway, add a partition or make good after an alteration, it is a dry lining and skimming job rather than wet plastering. Heavy items such as a wall-hung television need to find the studs or use proper board fixings, so plan them before any new boards go up.
Planning the work
Plans, a few photos and a line about how the space will be used are all we need to start. Having the boards hung and skimmed by one team avoids the cracks and gaps that open up between trades; see plastering and skimming in Burgess Hill. Our plasterboarding and dry lining service page goes into more detail, and the Burgess Hill area page lists everything else we do here.
