Sanding plasterwork is needed for a skim or film coat that will get wallpaper or paint, for patched holes and cracks, and for an old wall with rough patches. Well-finished plasterwork that is ready for painting does not need sanding over the whole wall.
Sanding as a separate job costs €3.99 per m² for walls and €6.99 per m² for ceilings with us, excluding VAT, and sanding is always included in our complete wallpapering package.
Walls sanded smooth and ready for paint or wallpaper?
Our own tradespeople sand at a fixed price per m², and sanding is always part of our wallpapering package
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When does plasterwork need sanding?
Sanding has one purpose: to remove the last small imperfections so that they do not show through the paint or wallpaper. Whether that is needed depends on what is on the wall and what is going on it.
The fact that plasterwork ready for painting needs no sanding over the whole wall comes down to the way it is plastered. In the technical data sheet for MP 75 gypsum plaster, Knauf describes how, after setting, the surface is lightly dampened and rubbed with a sanding sponge, and then immediately smoothed with plaster. The smoothing therefore happens while the layer is still workable.
With skim coat and a film coat it is different. That layer is sanded after drying, and only then does the wallpaper hanger start. Whether your wall needs such a thin film coat, we see during the site visit.
If your wall has spachtelputz or another grain on it, sanding will not make it smooth. Then taking a grain or texture off the wall is the route that does work.
When can you sand new plasterwork?
Only once the layer is dry. If you sand earlier, you are working in a layer that has not yet hardened, and you will not get a smooth surface from it.
How long that takes depends mostly on the thickness. A thin film coat dries in 3 to 5 days for a complete home, faster in summer, and we can place heat fans. According to Knauf, gypsum plaster can be sufficiently dry after about four weeks under good conditions. So find out for your situation how long plasterwork needs to dry before you pick up the sander.
The order afterwards is always the same: sand, remove the dust from the wall, prime, and only then paint. Dust left on the wall ends up under the primer and goes into the paint. So you never skip that primer if you want to make new plasterwork ready for painting.
What does it cost to have plasterwork sanded?
Sanding as a separate job is its own item in our price list, with a separate price for walls and ceilings. A ceiling has a higher rate: you work overhead, and light falling at an angle along the ceiling shows every edge.
Prices exclude VAT. For renovation work on a home over 10 years old, 6% VAT usually applies; otherwise it is 21%. The VAT rate is stated in your quote.
An example: in a bedroom, 35 m² of wall and a 12 m² ceiling are sanded as a separate job. The walls then cost 35 × €3.99 = €139.65 and the ceiling 12 × €6.99 = €83.88. Together that is €223.53.
If you have us wallpaper the walls with renovation fleece, you do not pay for sanding separately. It is always part of the package of hanging, filling and painting, even if the description does not say so.
The price list also includes a small-job surcharge of €249.99 and a one-off call-out charge of €99.99. Whether those apply to your job, you will see in the quote. The rest of our price list is openly available on our prices page.
Plastering calculator: your m² and price
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Doesn’t sanding make an uneven wall smooth?
No. Sanding removes material that sticks out: a burr, a ridge of filler, a drip of paint. A dip, a hole or a bulge in the wall does not become any flatter.
If you keep sanding an uneven wall, you even make the low spots more visible, because the edge around them gets sharper. A wall with dents or holes has to be filled first or levelled with a thin layer. Which approach that is depends on the wall: levelling an uneven wall before painting is done by filling or with a thin layer.
An extra coat of paint does not solve it either. A matt paint hides more than a silk finish, but every imperfection that remains after sanding shows up again in raking light.
Sand it yourself or have it done?
A few filled holes you can sand yourself with a sanding block. A whole house is something else. Gypsum dust is fine and gets everywhere, and working by hand over tens of m² of ceiling is heavy going and seldom even.
In the first photo in this article you can see how one of our tradespeople sands a large wall: with a pole sander, a vacuum attached to it and a covered floor. The wall is then dusted off and primed.
The work is done by our own tradespeople. We employ 32 plasterers, 40 wallpaper hangers and 25 painters, 97 tradespeople in all. Whoever sands the wall therefore also knows who will wallpaper or paint it afterwards, and the planning stays in our own hands.
In new builds, sanding is often an intermediate step in a fixed sequence. The home settles and shrinks in its first years, so where needed we apply a skim coat, sand it after drying and hang renovation fleece on it, which bridges small shrinkage cracks. That is how sanding becomes a fixed step when you have renovation fleece hung.
In your request, tell us whether the wall has been newly plastered, has filled holes or a grain, and what is going on it afterwards. You will then receive a free quote within 24 hours with only the sanding items that are needed.
During the site visit we look at what is really needed, wall by wall: only sanding, filling first, or a new layer.
If more needs to be done than sanding, you can also have walls and ceilings finished by our plasterers.
By the Bouwsector België team, 97 in-house tradespeople · reviewed by