I've got a problem with a room which has very old plaster walls, 3 of
the walls are brick with plaster, which I'm not too worried about,
I've patched some holes and the whole lot feels pretty strong.

The forth wall however is just wooden slates with plaster, and no
mater what I do with it, it just feels weak.. (If I push the middle
of the wall it bows a bit)

I'm thinking I could fix plaster board to the wall to give it a bit of
strength (not sure just how much strength it would give it?), is this
a good idea? If so, how do I fix plaster board to a weak wall?

Any ideas???

Harris wrote:
I've got a problem with a room which has very old plaster walls, 3 of
the walls are brick with plaster, which I'm not too worried about,
I've patched some holes and the whole lot feels pretty strong.

The forth wall however is just wooden slates with plaster, and no
mater what I do with it, it just feels weak.. (If I push the middle
of the wall it bows a bit)

I'm thinking I could fix plaster board to the wall to give it a bit of
strength (not sure just how much strength it would give it?), is this
a good idea? If so, how do I fix plaster board to a weak wall?
There will be vertical studs spaced around 2' apart. You can detect the
studs easily because of all the nails holding the horizontal lathes.
Simply screw the plasterboard to these studs using drywall screws which will
have to long enough to go through the old lathe & plaster which will be
about 1" thick.
I saw this done recently but the plaster was knocked off the lathes first
because it was "blown".
The lathes were left in place and the plasterboard screwed on top. The
result was good, firmer than a modern stud wall..

(Harris) wrote in message . com...
I've got a problem with a room which has very old plaster walls, 3 of
the walls are brick with plaster, which I'm not too worried about,
I've patched some holes and the whole lot feels pretty strong.

The forth wall however is just wooden slates with plaster, and no
mater what I do with it, it just feels weak.. (If I push the middle
of the wall it bows a bit)

I'm thinking I could fix plaster board to the wall to give it a bit of
strength (not sure just how much strength it would give it?), is this
a good idea? If so, how do I fix plaster board to a weak wall?

Any ideas???

I'm presuming that the plaster and laths are what's bowing, not the
timber members of the wall itself, which should be quite sturdy.

If they are (sturdy), find one, then sixteen inches away from it
should be the next one, and so on and so on. Remove your skirtings,
dado rails, picture rails, switches and sockets (if any) and just
over-board it with plaster board.

It'll feel a lot firmer but of course it will also need skimming.

"BillR" wrote in message .. .
Harris wrote:
I've got a problem with a room which has very old plaster walls, 3 of
the walls are brick with plaster, which I'm not too worried about,
I've patched some holes and the whole lot feels pretty strong.

The forth wall however is just wooden slates with plaster, and no
mater what I do with it, it just feels weak.. (If I push the middle
of the wall it bows a bit)

I'm thinking I could fix plaster board to the wall to give it a bit of
strength (not sure just how much strength it would give it?), is this
a good idea? If so, how do I fix plaster board to a weak wall?
There will be vertical studs spaced around 2' apart. You can detect the
studs easily because of all the nails holding the horizontal lathes.
Simply screw the plasterboard to these studs using drywall screws which will
have to long enough to go through the old lathe & plaster which will be
about 1" thick.
I saw this done recently but the plaster was knocked off the lathes first
because it was "blown".
The lathes were left in place and the plasterboard screwed on top. The
result was good, firmer than a modern stud wall..

The uprights will be any distance apart if they were put in before
regulations controlled studwork. Clear a patch of laths and have a
look. Stripping the plaster with or without the laths will be messy.
If you stripped the plaster you could plaster over the laths again or
add boards to the wickerwork.

Why not try just bonding it to the old wall with plasterboard
adhesive?

All lath and plaster walls do that. Why does it worry you?
The plaster (lime and horse hair) is more flexible than current
plaster so it should cope, but don't keep excersising it!

There are a number of long cracks in the plaster, which means that it
bows more than normal in those places....

Cheers for the advice, I've already removed the skirting board so
it's pretty obvious where the uprights are.

As for plasterboard adhesive, I'm not sure the old plaster would take
it? I could be wrong, but I think screwing it to something solid
sounds better to me....

I've had this dilema before and tried a couple of things on different
walls:

1. Plasterboard over the original plaster. This worked fine - screwed
all the way through into the studs. These studs were not vertical
though! Be aware of that - whilst you know the location of the studs
at the bottom of the wall that doesnt guarentee them being vertical. I
used some adhesive as well, just to be on the safe side. I took off
the lathes as they were all slightly different depths and I wasnt
convinced that that plasterboard would have been truly flush on them.

2. Removing original plaster and lathes. This was very messy. And
created so much waste. However I was doing some wiring at the time so
it seemed the best option. Plasterboard is really easy to screw into
the studs. And you can see where they are too. I had to make a whole
load of additional 'studs' (both vertical and hotizontal) as the studs
were not uniformally spaced and didnt fit with the standard
plasterboard sizes. This was pretty tedious.

All in all, next time I'll plasterboard over the original plaster.

Will