Hello All, I was guided to you by Zendo from House Chat 🙂
My name is Gi. My hubby and I live in a home that was built in the early part of the last century. It started life as a barn! In its long life the plaster and lath walls have accumulated a few layers of wallpaper and paint, which is starting to bubble and crack.
I was advised wisely by Zendo, that to improve the appearance of the walls, they would need to be stripped, and might need repair with a setting type plaster.
What would be the best to use?
Thanks,
Gi
Edited 5/6/2005 4:37 am ET by Gi
Replies
It sounds like Z was making reference to a "setting" type joint compound. These are joint compounds that dry via a chemical process after the addition of water to the powder. You will see them in different formulations based on how long they are workable. There are 30 minute, 60 minute and 90 minute versions. I use these for all my plaster repair work because they dry harder than standard ready mix DW compound. Also because they dry quickly you can get back to subsequent coats and final finishing more quickly. I like the Durock Easy Sand.
I lived in a house with badly plasterd walls with textured paint and had them skim coated to a diamond finish. The guy used readymixed joint compound and mixed plaster in with it. It is not as hard as straight plaster but it is more forgiving and gives you a longer working time.
If you can find and afford a plasterer who uses just plaster its a much better job and a pleasure to watch them work.
You'll have to scrape the loose paint off.
Make sure it is not the plaster pulling away from the lath. IF it is you should be able to tell by tapping on it. it will sound more hollow then the rest of the wall where the plaster is stille keyed in to the lath. If you have those there are special screws with quater sized disks on them you can use to screw the plaster back into the lath then skim coat over those. There may be areas that are too big for such a repair and you will have to remove the whole section.
Wow! Ripmeister, and Damian, thank you for the information and the advice! Very helpful :)Gi
The Durock is available at Lowes and HD. It is also available down to 15 minute mix, but you have to be quick to use it. It does make an excellent first coat, and then you can top coat with regular pre-mix compound, either regular or lightweight. Note that lightweight compound is not suitable for the first coat ... it even says so on the label.
I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
Rip,
Thank you for the direction, I wanted to be sure on the compound, I dont get a lot of repair in plaster/ lath houses.
Gi, I would like to commend you on coming over here and asking, most dont follow through.
If you need any assistance in the process, Ill be happy to answer or redirect your questions.
-zen
Wow! Ed, and Razzman, I'm keeping your info on Word. This is tremendous help, thank you all.
Z, thank you so much for your help in the other forum, and the great direction to this one.
I appreciate your further offer of help, too. Looks like its going to be quite a job! :)
Wish me luck!
Gi
When you repair plaster, on lathe, you need to see first if it is solid enough to bother with. Push at the surface and let up. Can you feel it separate from the lathe behing it? Just in spots or all over? If the latter, it is far batter to strip it all the way down to the lathe and hang sheetrock or new plaster board over and then give a new finish. But if it is just loose in spots, you need to drag a tool ( specially shaped scraper or a screwdriver blade) through any cracks to loosen up failing bonds and get loose griot away from it. The loose sections need to be refastened by screwing plaster repiar buttons to suck it tighter against the lathe, then it will not fall right off.After you scrape the cracks you need to paint them with a sealer/bonding agent. This stabilizes the loose grit and helps the plaster repair compound stick. Then you learn how to mix and apply.
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On the subject of using plaster washers to secure the cracked plaster, you'll have to check and see if any bits of broken plaster have found themselves wedged between the paster and the wooden lath that you are wanting to tighten up before you skimcoat.
Usually no problem if just showing cracks and what you are trying to do with the plaster washers is to secure the plaster to the lath to prevent that from ever happening.
If plasterwashers are needed you may want to make the plasterwashers less intrusive on the plaster to make it easier to cover with a skimcoat by predrilling a small 1/4 to 3/8ths cone hole thru the plaster to touch the the wood which supplies a place for the back of the plasterwasher and screwhead to sink down into a bit, thus not standing so proud of the level plaster surface.
Be careful not to raise the outer washer collar away from the plaster surface by burying the screw too deep.
If you really want to get detailed and laborious involved you can even scrape away a snall surface of the topcoat of the the original plaster to the thickness of the washer. Being careful to just take off that washer thickness making sure not to scrape into the base scratch coat.
Or just screw the things on there and make multiple passes of the skim coat to build it up enough to cover.
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I have an old house with plaster walls, and I used the following product on them many years ago and not one crack as reappeared. I have also used it two times since. You will need to fasten as much as you can with plaster washers and clean it up a bit but it will pretty much suck everything together. I really have had good results with this product.
http://www.spec-chem.com/nuwal/index.htm
Thank you so much, Piffin and RJ! I feel like a "surgeon", about to peel back that first skin of paint/wallpaper.
It really helps to be armed with good information before digging in. So again, thanks to everyone who has taken the time to help.
:)
Gi