Minimum door linings for solid internal doors

[shorn]

Hi,

I'm just starting out with renovating our house. It’s about 25 years old, and have realised that the internal walls are all laminated plasterboard construction. 3 sheets sandwiched, 15mm each side with 20mm inside. I’ve started looking at the door linings as was planning on replacing and hanging new solid doors. However, the current linings are about 20mm thick and only 50mm deep. Looks like it’s a moulded construction as, from what I can tell, the jam/stop isn’t separate.
Nothing available off the shelf, so I’m looking at making my own.

Question is, is a lining of 20mm thick going to be strong enough to hold a solid door?

 

[thetyreman]

ideally you want 32mm thick solid wood linings, 20mm is a bit thin.

 

[shorn]

Thanks for the reply. I guess I could go thicker on the lining and just get next size down doors. Currently got 762 wide doors, so could aim for 711 ones, with thicker lining and room to pack out..
The depth is not great too at only 50mm the stops are only about 10mm.

 

[chuggy]

18mm mdf linings are quite common

 

[Phil Pascoe]

But are designed for papier a mache doors.

 

[Spectric]

I had a similar issue with the bathroom, rather than try and work round sub standard walls it was easier to just replace them and use door sizes I wanted. Trying to work with a problem can be more work than fixing the problem.

 

[Chip shop]

I think I may be going daft in my old age, but are you saying the internal wall construction is 3 sheets of plasterboard? No stud or owt else to hold it 'up'? What do you fix the casing to?

 

[shorn]

There's battening each side and top and bottom 2x1" from what I can see. Lining is attached to that.

 

[shorn]

I had a similar issue with the bathroom, rather than try and work round sub standard walls it was easier to just replace them and use door sizes I wanted. Trying to work with a problem can be more work than fixing the problem.

That's what I'm (reluctantly) leaning towards. Shudder at the though of having to redo all the walls though! (Work and cost.)
This is the layout upstairs. The markers (1&2) indicate where those photos were taken.

 

[Spectric]

Stud walls are not hard if you have a decent mitre saw, for me the worst part is having to get someone to plaster them, I can only plaster floors. Once you have the saw set up just cut a box of nogins and away you go. Just remember plasterboard is not 8ft(2438mm) by 4ft(1220mm) these days, it is 2400 by 1200 and if you grew up imperial it is easy to have a flashback.

 

[Chip shop]

Wowzer, they'll chuck 'em up any old how now nowadays!

I think I'd be really tempted to replace with proper stud work.

 

[shorn]

I’m not too worried about putting them up and plasterboarding them. We need to get all the ceilings skimmed anyhow, so guess it would extend that. It’s more the total disruption whilst we’re still living in it.

 

[shorn]

Wowzer, they'll chuck 'em up any old how now nowadays!

I think I'd be really tempted to replace with proper stud work.

I know, right?!
Apparently it was popular in the 80s as a way to not require a joiner on site to make up the stud walls.

We’re not intending on moving from this house in a very long time, so want to make sure it’s done right now.

Also, if we’re replacing the internal walls, I guess it’ll be worth looking at whether the layout is optimised and seeing if tweaks can be made there.

 

[Spectric]

It’s more the total disruption whilst we’re still living in it.

At least being your home you will not have to all wear hard hats! I had not done any boarding for sometime until our bathroom ceiling, wow that is the way to show you have aged. I could manage a full sheet when younger and fix, not this time and I had to buy one of those board lifters where you can wind the sheet upto the ceiling.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Stud walls are not hard if you have a decent mitre saw, for me the worst part is having to get someone to plaster them, I can only plaster floors. Once you have the saw set up just cut a box of nogins and away you go. Just remember plasterboard is not 8ft(2438mm) by 4ft(1220mm) these days, it is 2400 by 1200 and if you grew up imperial it is easy to have a flashback.

Remember those wonderful days when floor boards were one and ceiling boards the other?

 

[shorn]

Add to this the lovely chipboard floorboards and it all becomes a bit of a pig of a job!
I'm guessing that none of these 1st floor internals walls are providing any structural support? I've checked them all and they're all the same. Just wondering what the process is for this. Presumably it would be better to rip them all out and replace all in one go? I'm I going to need to be looking at supports? Downstairs, we only have one main wall separating the lounge and kitchen. This is the same construction. Found out this week when getting a new boiler fitted that there's two steels running through.

 

[Inspector]

Man I though we had some buckshee ways to cheap out a building. In that vein I had a buckshee thought.

Rather than replace all the walls could you add 2x2s to the existing wall using construction adhesive with some screws from the other side to pull them tight and then skin them over with a sheet of drywall. You would get your thickness, not have to mess with electrical beyond some box extenders, spend less than replacing all the walls and have minimal disposal fees.

Pete

 

[Doug71]

Be careful, if you start moving the walls around, you might need to add more joist or noggins to the floor.

I'm currently working on a house that was built in I think the 70's. The upstairs walls are about 60mm thick, they have a plasterboard each side with cardboard/ eggbox type construction between them, just like the old internal Sapele flush doors that used to be the fashion.

 

[Doug71]

Remember those wonderful days when floor boards were one and ceiling boards the other?

Yes, that used to be a problem on flat roofs, the joiner would set out the joist at 16" centres for his plywood then the plasterboard was too short underneath

 

[shorn]

Be careful, if you start moving the walls around, you might need to add more joist or noggins to the floor.

I'm currently working on a house that was built in I think the 70's. The upstairs walls are about 60mm thick, they have a plasterboard each side with cardboard/ eggbox type construction between them, just like the old internal Sapele flush doors that used to be the fashion.

We had that in our previous house. just hope you never want to fish a cable through!