Best plasterers in Cannington, Thornlie & Perth’s south-east (2026)
Table of Contents
Perth’s south-east corridor — Bentley through Cannington, Thornlie, Gosnells, Maddington and out to Armadale — has the deepest plastering bench of any cluster we have ranked in this trade. Five operators clear our floor here, against three in Stirling and four in Morley. It is also the corridor where the ceiling-repair specialists are strongest: three of the five below make their living replacing sagging and water-damaged ceilings rather than setting walls in new builds. The ranking below is built from Google review data only, weighted for volume, with every listing verified against its Maps place page and, where one exists, the operator’s own website.
Featured plasterers
This slot is open. If you plaster or fix ceilings in Bentley, Cannington, Thornlie, Gosnells, Maddington, Canning Vale or Armadale and you want to sit at the top of this page, a Featured spot puts your business in front of homeowners at the moment they are choosing who to call.
Get a Featured spot ▸How we ranked these
- Google reviews do the ranking. We start with every operator we can find with a real presence across Bentley, Wilson, St James, Cannington, Queens Park, Beckenham, Kenwick, Langford, Lynwood, Ferndale, Thornlie, Canning Vale, Huntingdale, Southern River, Gosnells, Maddington, Orange Grove, Forrestfield, Armadale and Bedfordale.
- Volume matters as much as the score. We weight each rating by its review count against a fixed baseline. That is why a 4.9 across seventy-five reviews finishes ahead of a 5.0 across thirty-eight, and why a 4.7 across sixty-nine still lands above a 4.7 across forty. Read the entries as well as the order — these five are very different businesses.
- Verified locally, or cut. We open the Google Maps place page for every candidate rather than trusting the search result card, because the card’s trade category is frequently wrong. On this page alone the cards labelled a working ceiling contractor a “ceiling supplier” and two plastering businesses “dry wall contractors”. We check the pinned coordinates, the street address and the operator’s own website.
- A pin on the map centre is not an address. One well-reviewed renderer in this corridor drops its pin on the exact coordinates of the Perth-metro map centre — the placeholder Google uses when a business gives a service area and no premises. It has 27 reviews and a 5.0, and it still does not appear below, because we cannot place it in a suburb.
- One brand, one entry — and only where it has a base. The multi-suburb repair networks that blanket this corridor run separate Gosnells, Belmont and Armadale listings off one website and one booking line. A call centre with a local postcode attached is not a local business, so none of them appears below.
- Supply is not trade. Plasterboard warehouses and cornice manufacturers rate extremely well on counter service and they rank on every plasterer search here. They do not come to your house and fix your ceiling, so they are excluded.
MPS Plastering WA
Based at Bentley Plaza on Albany Highway, MPS Plastering WA carries seventy-five reviews at 4.9 — the largest verified record we have found anywhere in this trade, in any Perth cluster. That volume is what puts it first: a 4.9 held across seventy-five separate jobs is a much harder thing to fake or fluke than a perfect score across a handful. The review themes are unusually specific for a plasterer — cornice repair, water-damaged ceiling repair, structural crack repair and texture coating all appear as distinct clusters, which suggests a business that takes remedial work rather than only chasing new-build volume. One reviewer describes a 1920s house with extensive damage to original plaster-on-lath walls, a job several other trades had declined, repaired crack by crack. Another had a full re-patch of several rooms and a hallway quoted and finished inside a short window. The recurring words across the record are “fair pricing”, “high standard” and “reasonable quote”. Owner-operated, and the reviews name the same person throughout, which is worth knowing if you want the person who quotes to be the person who does the work.
Find plasterers in the directory ▸JAGS Ceiling Co
A 5.0 across thirty-eight reviews is rare, and JAGS Ceiling Co holds one from a claimed listing at Partridge Way, Thornlie. Google’s own review breakdown puts twenty-four mentions against “ceiling work” and twelve against “ceiling repair”, with a separate cluster for water-damaged ceilings — this is a ceiling specialist rather than a general plasterer, and the record reads that way. Several reviewers came to them after air-conditioning leaks or roof water got into a ceiling; one describes a 1970s dining room and kitchen ceiling repaired rather than ripped out. The other thing the record shows is a willingness to take small jobs: seven reviews specifically mention a bunch of minor repairs quoted together at a reasonable price, which is the work most operators quietly decline. Quoting is described repeatedly as quick. If your job is one damaged ceiling rather than a whole house, this is the entry to read first.
Find plasterers in the directory ▸Leo Ceilings
Google files Leo Ceilings at Crandon Street, Gosnells under “ceiling supplier”, which would normally get a listing cut from this page — we exclude suppliers. It is a miscategorisation, and a common one in this trade. The owner’s own posts describe stripping old sheets, re-insulating and flushing ceilings to a finish, and the review record backs that up: framing, plasterboarding and finishing work quoted as one package for a shop fitout, ceiling repairs after a door and frame install, cornice repair called out as its own theme. This is a contracting business, not a counter. Thirty-six reviews at a straight 5.0, running back four years, with the same two names recurring — and the pattern across them is responsiveness, several reviewers noting a quote the same day they called. Worth noting there is no website, so the Google listing and the phone number are the whole shopfront.
Find plasterers in the directory ▸Top Ceilings
Sixty-nine reviews at 4.7 makes Top Ceilings the second-largest record on this page, and the largest at the Armadale end of the corridor. It trades online as Perth Ceiling Repairs, and its website gives a Bedfordale address that matches the suburb on the Google listing — the two street numbers differ, which is normal for a sole trader working from home, but the locality is consistent across both sources, which is the test we apply. Twenty-two reviews mention ceiling repair specifically and the water-damage theme dominates: storm ingress, roof leaks, a bedroom ceiling that had already caved in. The operator advertises a 24-hour response, and the reviews support it — several describe a same-day assessment with the ceiling made safe before the repair was scheduled. At 4.7 it carries a handful of non-perfect ratings that the 5.0 entries above do not; on a record this size, that is a fair trade for the volume of evidence behind it.
Find plasterers in the directory ▸Jins Ceilings and Plastering
Jins Ceilings and Plastering works out of Lyrebird Way in Thornlie with forty reviews at 4.7 and a website of its own. The strongest thread in the record is availability at the small end: one reviewer with a collapsed bathroom ceiling describes contacting several highly-rated contractors and getting no interest because the job was too small, then being fitted in. Another had cracks from an old water leak quoted and fixed on time and cleanly. Reviewers name the owner and several note he leads the work on site himself. In fairness to you rather than to the business: this is the one entry on the page with a visible negative in its recent record — at least one reviewer describes the experience as unprofessional. Forty reviews at 4.7 means the great majority are positive, but you should read the one-star reviews yourself before you book, as you should with any trade.
Find plasterers in the directory ▸What plastering actually costs in Perth (2026)
These are indicative Perth-metro ranges drawn from published trade pricing data, not quotes, and the spread inside each one is wide for a reason. Access is the biggest single variable: a single-storey ceiling with a clear run and no furniture is a different job from a two-storey stairwell void. Condition is the second — a ceiling that has to be propped and made safe before anything else happens costs more than one that can simply be sheeted. Ceilings generally run twenty to thirty per cent above walls for the same area, because everything is done overhead. Use the table to sanity-check a quote, not to argue a tradesperson down to it.
| Job | Typical range | What moves the number |
|---|---|---|
| Plasterer labour | $52–$125/hr | Metro average sits near $81/hr; call-out minimums apply |
| Plasterboard supplied and fixed | $26–$68/m² | Sheet thickness, ceiling height, waste and access |
| Ceiling replacement | $37–$89/m² | Propping, insulation removal, asbestos-era buildings |
| Cornice | $16–$63/lm | Cove versus ornate profile; mitres and short runs |
| Board supply only | +$8–$18/m² | If you buy the sheets separately from the labour |
Two things that reliably blow a plastering budget: discovering the ceiling above the damaged sheet is also wet, and discovering the original ceiling is not plasterboard at all. Pre-1990 homes in this corridor can have fibrous plaster, lath or asbestos-containing sheeting overhead. A plasterer cannot legally remove bonded asbestos above ten square metres in WA — that is licensed removal work — so if a quote seems suspiciously low for an older ceiling, ask what happens if the sheeting turns out not to be plasterboard.
Do plasterers need a licence in WA? (the honest answer)
No. There is no plasterer’s registration in Western Australia. Building and Energy, the state regulator, registers and licenses builders, building engineers, building surveyors, electrical workers, gasfitters, owner-builders, painters and plumbers. Plastering is not on that list. The contrast is worth sitting with: a painter needs registration to paint work valued at $1,000 or more, while a plasterer can render an entire house facade with no trade registration of any kind.
That does not leave you without protection, it just means the protection sits in contract law rather than in a licence. The Home Building Contracts Act 1991 covers fixed-price home building work between $7,500 and $500,000, and it applies whether or not the tradesperson is a registered builder. In that band the contract must be in writing and signed by both parties, and you must be given the “Notice for the homeowner” before you sign, not after.
Two numbers to remember: the deposit is capped at 6.5% of the contract price in that band, and progress payments can only be claimed for work actually done or materials actually delivered on site. If a job needs a building permit and is valued over $20,000, home indemnity insurance is required — it covers loss of deposit up to $40,000 and incomplete or defective work up to $200,000.
If it goes wrong, complaints go to the Building Services and Home Building Work Contracts complaint process, and you have three years from the date of the contract to lodge one. Building and Energy’s general enquiries line is 1300 489 099.
So what should you actually check, in the absence of a licence to check?
- A registered business name and an ABN you can verify. Look it up on ABN Lookup before you pay a deposit. It takes thirty seconds and it is the single cheapest piece of due diligence available to you.
- Public liability insurance, sighted. Ask for the certificate of currency, not a verbal assurance.
- A written quote that itemises materials and labour. A single lump-sum figure with no breakdown gives you nothing to hold anyone to.
- A real address, or at least a real trading history. Every operator on this page has one. Many well-reviewed plasterers do not.
- Photos of finished work in homes like yours. New-build volume work and remedial repair in a 1970s house are different skills.
Don’t get ripped off: red flags
- A deposit above 6.5%. In the $7,500–$500,000 band that is not a negotiating position, it is outside what the Act allows.
- Cash-only, no paperwork. No contract means no warranty you can enforce and no insurance you can claim against.
- A quote given over the phone, sight unseen. Nobody can price a ceiling repair without looking into the roof space. A phone figure is a hook, and it will move.
- “We service all Perth” and nothing else. Plenty of good tradespeople work metro-wide, but if there is no address, no ABN and no trading history anywhere, you have no way to find them again if the work fails in a year.
- Pressure to start immediately on a “cancellation”. The genuinely good operators in this corridor are booked out; several of the reviews above mention waiting for a slot. Urgency is a sales technique.
- Refusing to discuss what happens if the ceiling turns out to be asbestos. In a corridor with this much pre-1990 housing stock, that is the question a competent plasterer expects and a careless one dodges.
Before you hire: quick checklist
- Get three quotes, in writing. Not to pick the cheapest, but to see where the outlier sits and why.
- Ask who is actually doing the work. The person quoting is not always the person on the trestle.
- Confirm what the price includes. Rubbish removal, furniture protection and making good the paintwork are the three items most often quietly excluded.
- Ask about drying time before painting. A new ceiling that gets painted too early will show every join, and that argument is much harder to have after the fact.
- Check the warranty and get it in writing. Twelve months on workmanship is common in this corridor; a verbal promise is not a warranty.
- Photograph the room before work starts. It settles any dispute about pre-existing damage in one minute rather than one month.
Frequently asked
How much does it cost to fix a sagging ceiling?
For a single room, most repairs in this corridor land in the several-hundred to low-thousands range depending on whether the sheet can be re-fixed or has to be replaced. Ceiling replacement is commonly quoted at $37–$89 per square metre, so a 12m² bedroom ceiling sits roughly between $450 and $1,070 before cornice, insulation and making good. What pushes it higher is almost always something found once the sheet comes down — wet insulation, a leak still active, or framing that has moved. Ask for the quote to state what happens in that case rather than assuming it is covered.
Is a sagging ceiling actually dangerous, or can it wait?
It can be dangerous, and the timing is counter-intuitive. Ceiling collapses after water ingress often happen a day or two after the water event rather than during it, once the plasterboard has fully saturated — a wet sheet can be several times its normal weight before it lets go. If you have a soft patch, a visible sag, or nail heads popping through, keep people out from under it and get it assessed. Several operators on this page offer emergency call-outs and will prop or make a ceiling safe before scheduling the actual repair.
Can a ceiling be repaired, or does the whole thing have to be replaced?
Often it can be repaired. A patch is viable when the damage is localised, the surrounding sheet is dry and sound, and the framing has not moved. Replacement becomes the better call when the sheet has sagged across a whole span, when the damage crosses multiple joins, or when the repair patch would be so large that matching the surrounding finish becomes the hard part. Several of the businesses above specifically market repair over replacement, which is worth knowing — a contractor whose default answer is always “replace the lot” is worth a second quote.
Why do some plasterers refuse small jobs?
Because the setup cost is much the same whether the job is one metre or fifty. Travel, trestles, mixing, dust protection and the return trip to sand and finish all happen regardless, so a small repair carries a poor hourly return unless it can be batched with other work nearby. This is exactly why two of the entries above stand out — their review records contain repeated thanks for taking a job everyone else declined. If you have several small repairs, group them into one quote rather than calling about each one.
What is the difference between a plasterer, a ceiling fixer and a renderer?
They overlap, and in WA nobody is licensed as any of them, so the titles are self-applied. Broadly: a ceiling fixer installs and repairs plasterboard ceilings and cornice; a solid plasterer or renderer works cement, acrylic or texture finishes onto masonry, usually externally; a general plasterer does dry-wall setting, patching and finishing on internal walls. Most operators do more than one. The practical move is to ignore the label and read the review record — if you need a water-damaged ceiling replaced, you want someone whose last twenty reviews are about ceilings, not facades.
How were these rankings put together?
From Google review data only, weighted so that a rating held across many reviews outranks a perfect score held across a few. We assessed 22 businesses across the corridor and read 476 reviews. Every listing that appears was checked on its Google Maps place page, not just the search result card, because the trade category on the card is frequently wrong — on this page it mislabelled a working ceiling contractor as a supplier. Operators without a verifiable street address were excluded, however good their record, along with plasterboard suppliers, multi-suburb booking networks and anything rating below 4.3. No business paid to appear in the ranked list, and none of them knows they are on it.
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Get featured ▸ Claim your free listingRankings based on Google review data collected 28 August 2026. Ratings change, we re-check monthly. Blue Collar Business · Western Australia’s Trades & Home Services Directory.