Plumbers leave massive holes. How do I fix?
Senna
| Posted in General Discussion on
I have been helping a friend out with her bathroom remodel in her newly purchased condo. After stripping the tiles off the wall it was apparent the shower facet and bathtub needed to be replaced. The plumbers came today and have left these huge holes in the walls. The walls are concrete and metal lath construction. It is an older building and there are no studs for support.
The toilet is already up against the wall as it is, so drywall over the wall behind the tank is a problem. And backer board around the tub will bring the wall out too far and wouldn’t be well supported around the tub.
Replies
My guess is that you'd either patch with more plaster on wire lath or rip it all out and install new drywall and/or cement board.
Senna
What is the distance from the toilet bolts to the plaster?
Is the tub lip along the long wall back behind the outter surface of the plaster?
Can you chip off enough of the plaster along the edge of the hack job to fasten new metal to the old? (tie wire it).
This would acutally be a great spot to use WEDI board. It's an XPS foam core with a cement face. It comes in a variety of thicknesses, is light, and can be cut and trimmed like foam. It's also waterproof at it's face.
If you can figure out the average thickness of the exiting bed (say 1") you can ge a similar thickness of WEDI. You can then mount some thing behind it to screw the foam onto. Scribe the rough outline of the holes onto the board and cut them out. Plug the holes with the foam shape, and use mortar to fill in the gaps around the holes and the foam plug.
Over all your cement face, use something like RedGuard to seal the face against water penetration. Tile as normal.
After hours or deliberation we are trying to tie in some metal lath and plaster over it. Using parging mix for the first couple of coats.
So I cut and shaped the lath and was excited to apply the parging mix only to find it doesn't stick very well. There is nothing behind it so the mud just passes through the mesh. How the hell did the guys who orginally built these walls do it?
Those plaster guy's really had an artwork going on back then. Sheetrock is cheap. I would probably just tear out and replace with sheetrock. Somebody might have easier fix but thats probably what I would end up doing.
"Those plaster guy's really
"Those plaster guy's really had an artwork going on back then. Sheetrock is cheap. I would probably just tear out and replace with sheetrock. Somebody might have easier fix but thats probably what I would end up doing."
I would rip the whole wall out and rebuild it if it was up to me.
senna
I cannot help because I've only done minor repairs to metal mesh. However, can you see a coarse "cement" looking base coat?
This would have been packed in semi dry, not like joint compound or finish plaster. That might find a bond with the mesh, then you top coat.
Please measure the center of the toilet bolts to the finished wall. If 12" and it's close, too close to the finished wall and you plan on tiling behind it, you might find a 10" rough in toilet that would fit the bill better.
What kind of wire lath are you using? diamond mesh? That too would help hold the base coat better. It will be pretty rigid also.
Best of luck.
I had several guys running around the home improvement store today trying to figure out what would be the best base coat. We considerd quick setting drywall, stucco, scratch coat motor, Plaster of Paris and several others.
The base coat the wall is made from certainly looks like a concrete base to me. The outer finish material is a hard plaster.
The toilet is 12 inch. We are looking for something smaller.
senna
Do you have a GOOD drywall supply house, preferably a commercial supply? I would ask their help in getting info on the base.
Here's a link to USG's section on metal lath and scratch (because you "scratch or comb" the base coat for better bond of subsequent coats), brown and finish coats.
http://www.usg.com/documents/construction-handbook/chapter7.pdf
What I noticed when reading up on this again is that there is a metal with backer paper available. That sure as hell should keep the base from falling through.
Best of luck.
What you need is someone who knows what they are doing. There is no majpr repair issue I see, just lack of knowledge. You need lath with black felt already glued to the back. Cut to shape use tie wire to hold it to the C-channels. Apply a scratch coat of bagged stucco mix and let it dry for a day. Apply a second coat using a straight edge to keep it flat and true. Wait 24 and apply a third coat, let it dry about an hour and use a wet wood float or a scrap of 2 X 4 and rub in small circles to smooth and even it out.
If you go slow and are fussy it will turn out fine. Of course it should have been done before the toilet was installed.
I would assume that the toilet would be uninstalled to repair the wall behind it. Uninstalling a toilet is a nearly trivial job. Just be sure to use a new wax ring on reinstallation.