Hi!

I've got a 50 year old house with crumbly, brittle plaster on the
walls - it's not on the verge of falling off but wherever there's a
chip/break in the surface the stuff around it just crumbles away. It's
totally dry (perhaps too dry) but blown in a few places and drilling
holes usually requires an attack of the polyfiller afterwards. In the
dinning room I've put 3 skim layers over the old plaster and this has
made it look nice and smooth but this illusion faulters at the drill
test.

Anyway, onto the walls in the new baby room that are going to have to
be resilliant to the (lack of) attention of a growing boy. I'm not
keen to attempt full-on plastering and we want to avoid the cost of
getting someone in so the only way left, it would seem, to have tough,
even walls is to put up plasterboard. But, my concern is that the
existing plaster ain't that great.

Is it advisable to take down the old plaster or, as a whole entity,
would you expect 50 year old plaster to be strong enough to hold
plasterboards dotted&dabbed into place? If the latter, should I repair
the old blown plaster first (seen the method in the FAQ list)?

Thanks for any advice,
David.

"David" wrote in message
om...

Is it advisable to take down the old plaster or, as a whole entity,
would you expect 50 year old plaster to be strong enough to hold
plasterboards dotted&dabbed into place? If the latter, should I repair
the old blown plaster first (seen the method in the FAQ list)?

I think unless it's *really* badly blown, the plasterboards would hold fine,
without repairing the old plaster. The plasterboard will act like a splint
to hold it all together. If you're really worried, one option might be to
hack away a few smallish areas of plaster to expose the brick, so that in
some areas at least, the plasterboard adhesive is bonding the board directly
to brick.

However, you'll make the room quite a bit smaller by doing it like this
rather than removing the old plaster - does that matter to you? Having said
that it's a very messy job!

Finally, as an alternative solution, have you considered repairing the blown
plaster as per the FAQ (PVA solution and syringes IIRC?!), and then covering
the whole lot with heavy duty lining paper before painting or wallpapering,
whatever you'll do? That would cover a multitude of sins with a lot less
hassle than either of the above, and I suspect even cope with a toddler
bouncing round the room (been there, done that).

hth
David

On 9 Nov 2004 05:52:24 -0800, (David) wrote:

Hi!

I've got a 50 year old house with crumbly, brittle plaster on the
walls - it's not on the verge of falling off but wherever there's a
chip/break in the surface the stuff around it just crumbles away. It's
totally dry (perhaps too dry) but blown in a few places and drilling
holes usually requires an attack of the polyfiller afterwards. In the
dinning room I've put 3 skim layers over the old plaster and this has
made it look nice and smooth but this illusion faulters at the drill
test.

Anyway, onto the walls in the new baby room that are going to have to
be resilliant to the (lack of) attention of a growing boy. I'm not
keen to attempt full-on plastering and we want to avoid the cost of
getting someone in so the only way left, it would seem, to have tough,
even walls is to put up plasterboard. But, my concern is that the
existing plaster ain't that great.

Is it advisable to take down the old plaster or, as a whole entity,
would you expect 50 year old plaster to be strong enough to hold
plasterboards dotted&dabbed into place? If the latter, should I repair
the old blown plaster first (seen the method in the FAQ list)?

Thanks for any advice,
David.

If the majority of the underlying plaster is blown then you are hardly
lkikely to get a good result with dot and dab, though you might want
to try screwing battens through the plaster to the brick beneath and
then mounting the boards on these.

Rob


Replace 'spam' with 'org' to reply

"Kalico" wrote in message
...
On 9 Nov 2004 05:52:24 -0800, (David) wrote:

Hi!

I've got a 50 year old house with crumbly, brittle plaster on the
walls - it's not on the verge of falling off but wherever there's a
chip/break in the surface the stuff around it just crumbles away. It's
totally dry (perhaps too dry) but blown in a few places and drilling
holes usually requires an attack of the polyfiller afterwards. In the
dinning room I've put 3 skim layers over the old plaster and this has
made it look nice and smooth but this illusion faulters at the drill
test.

Anyway, onto the walls in the new baby room that are going to have to
be resilliant to the (lack of) attention of a growing boy. I'm not
keen to attempt full-on plastering and we want to avoid the cost of
getting someone in so the only way left, it would seem, to have tough,
even walls is to put up plasterboard. But, my concern is that the
existing plaster ain't that great.

Is it advisable to take down the old plaster or, as a whole entity,
would you expect 50 year old plaster to be strong enough to hold
plasterboards dotted&dabbed into place? If the latter, should I repair
the old blown plaster first (seen the method in the FAQ list)?

Thanks for any advice,
David.

If the majority of the underlying plaster is blown then you are hardly
lkikely to get a good result with dot and dab, though you might want
to try screwing battens through the plaster to the brick beneath and
then mounting the boards on these.

Rob


Replace 'spam' with 'org' to reply


Rip it all off and do it properly. Then you know it will last another 50
years. Messy yes but a bit of plaster dust is hardly the end of the world. I
know I took down a lath and plaster ceiling today. Just buy a good dustmask.
:-)

David wrote:

I've got a 50 year old house with crumbly, brittle plaster on the
walls - it's not on the verge of falling off but wherever there's a
chip/break in the surface the stuff around it just crumbles away. It's
totally dry (perhaps too dry) but blown in a few places and drilling
holes usually requires an attack of the polyfiller afterwards. In the
dinning room I've put 3 skim layers over the old plaster and this has
made it look nice and smooth but this illusion faulters at the drill
test.

Anyway, onto the walls in the new baby room that are going to have to
be resilliant to the (lack of) attention of a growing boy. I'm not
keen to attempt full-on plastering and we want to avoid the cost of
getting someone in so the only way left, it would seem, to have tough,
even walls is to put up plasterboard. But, my concern is that the
existing plaster ain't that great.

Is it advisable to take down the old plaster or, as a whole entity,
would you expect 50 year old plaster to be strong enough to hold
plasterboards dotted&dabbed into place? If the latter, should I repair
the old blown plaster first (seen the method in the FAQ list)?


Your walls sound a lot like ours were. We chipped off all the plaster
that would come off easily, and left the rest on. PVAd the walls, then
dot&dabbed 12mm PB on. Very good results.


--
Grunff

(David) wrote in
om:

Is it advisable to take down the old plaster or, as a whole entity,
would you expect 50 year old plaster to be strong enough to hold
plasterboards dotted&dabbed into place? If the latter, should I repair
the old blown plaster first (seen the method in the FAQ list)?

In my last house someone had put up plasterboard a little away from the old
plaster. Used to listen to bits of plaster falling off in the evenings.
Eventually I could stand it no more and ripped it all down and replastered.

--
Rod

www.annalaurie.co.uk

Rod Hewitt wrote:
In my last house someone had put up plasterboard a little away from
the old
plaster. Used to listen to bits of plaster falling off in the
evenings.
Eventually I could stand it no more and ripped it all down and
replastered.

I'm buying a Victorian era terrace house and the plaster is reasonably
stable, yet its lumpy and the walls aren't great to look at. I think
theres some merit from removing the old stuff and getting back to
brick. I wonder if its worth having an initial layer of celotex, then
plasterboard on top of that. Other than cost of celotex and loss of a
few cms, I don't see any other issues.

What options do I have as a finish to the plasterboard? I've never done
plastering before but I'm willing to have a go. I've seen it done with
taperboard and taped joints, but is that really the way to go?

Martyn