Every plasterer in Kent has had the conversation. The quote covers the boarding, the skim and the making good, and then the customer asks why there is a line for waste. The honest answer is that plastering produces more debris, weight for weight, than almost any other trade that works inside a house, and shifting it legally costs real money. Pricing it properly at the start beats arguing about it at the end.
Why plastering waste is different
Strip a single ceiling and the pile tells the story: old plasterboard, coving, browning coats that come away in slabs, and bag after bag of set gypsum that went off in the mixing bucket. It is dense, dusty and heavy. A full room strip-out in an older Medway terrace, where the walls carry decades of patching, can put half a tonne in the skip before the new boards are even delivered.
Gypsum is also the reason plasterboard cannot simply be mixed into a general load. Since 2009 it has had to be separated from biodegradable waste, because gypsum in landfill produces harmful gas. Transfer stations police this, and a mixed skip with plasterboard through it attracts a contamination surcharge, typically somewhere between £80 and £150 on top of the hire. The economical habit is simple: board offcuts in their own stack or bagged separately, and told to the skip company when booking so the load is handled right.
Sizing the skip for the job
For a one-room strip and re-skim, a 4-yard midi usually covers it, and its weight limit suits dense plaster waste better than a half-filled larger skip. A full house re-board with old lath and plaster coming down is 6-yard territory, filled level. The mistake to avoid is the 8-yard filled to the top with wet plaster and rubble: it will be over the lorry’s lifting limit, and the driver is entitled to refuse it or charge for a part-empty before it moves.
What it costs across Kent
Rates move around the county more than most customers realise, which is worth building into quotes for jobs at either end of it. Current ranges for skip hire across Kent put a 4-yard between £140 and £346 depending on the postcode, with 6-yard builders skips from about £180. Rent-a-Skip lists the town-by-town figures, and a two-minute check against the job’s actual postcode keeps the waste line accurate rather than averaged.
The permit, and who pays it
A skip on the customer’s driveway needs no permit anywhere in Kent. On the road it depends on the authority: Medway Council, for instance, charges £73 for a 14-day permit and wants three working days’ notice, which matters for a job booked to start Monday. Whoever arranges the skip should also arrange the permit, and the quote should say which side of the line that sits on, because a £73 surprise sours a £700 job.
Put it in writing
The trades that get paid without argument are the ones whose quotes name the waste: the skip size, who supplies it, the permit if the road placement is unavoidable, and the plasterboard handled separately. It reads as professionalism to the customer, and it means the only surprises on the job are the ones behind the old plaster.