Plaster board or solid Plaster for walls?

[Mike-W]

Hi all- particularly home renovators!
We are considering enlarging our bungalow kitchen by moving our bathroom into the garage, before we start this I need to tidy up our Utility room where the plaster is falling off the walls. (The plasterer rushed the job and made a ‘dogs dinner’ of it 15 years ago -resulting in the rendering beneath the top coat falling away from the walls!)
Part of the bathroom move will need the current door from the utility to the garage being blocked up and the utility being re designed (i.e. new kitchen style cabinets made).
I am wondering whether to have the whole room re-plastered or to use the modern method of finishing and have plasterboard stuck onto the walls.
Any body with any views on block walls finished with plasterboard ?

Mike

 

[toplink]

Or you could just batten and plasterboard followed by a skimcoat.
This way you could put battens were you need them to support wall units also run any new wiring you might need.

If you put plasterboard onto dabs you will have voids which makes getting any fixings back to the blockwork a little harder to do.

Simon

 

[Scrit]

As Simon says, the dab and line technique can lead to problems hanging stuff on the walls, mainly when you don't know what's nbeneath the plasterboard! Personally I hate finding the stuff in kitchens when I'm trying to hang cupboards on the walls, mainly because you can rarely be sure what you've got beneath the plasterboard, but in terms of speed and cost it is much faster and cheaper to board out (on dabs) then skim than it is to either batten out or do a full three coat plastering job. So if you don't need to hang much on the walls I'd still go that way

BTW, there are techniques for hanging stuff on the walls - it generally just means drilling deeper and using longer/thicker screws than you'd normally use

Scrit

 

[Loz_S]

I've recently done quite a bit of rebuilding involving plasterboard walls and ceilings. I even had a go at plastering as well. Which after flattening a few "hills" wasn't that bad.

Whether you decide to re-plaster or use a false wall with plasterboard is really down to the state of the wall and your bank balance! I'm sure plasterers are just as expensive in England as here so you need to ask your self how important is it that the walls are perfect again? If the existing plaster is in a really bad state then it will all have to come off before you start again. This is unbelievably messy. Dust gets absolutely everywhere.

However, if you want to get on with it yourself then stripping columns of plaster from the wall to fix the battens is easy to do. You can also pack out the battens to make sure everything is flat. Don't forget you will lose 4-6cm per wall. I wouldn't consider battens and boards (or boards dotted to the walls) to be a "modern" and therefore better solution though. It is merely cheap and convenient. IMHO the problem is merely being covered up for later. Getting a solid wall re-plastered is always better, whether it is worth the expense is up to you, of course.

 

[RogerS]

I'd go along with loz_s.

A good plasterer should be able to bond and finish a medium size room in a day. If you batten and plasterboard, you'll still probably want a skim coat on top..so adding the time for this plus your time to batten and board plus cost of boards etc........reckon plastering is better.

Only question to ask is why did the original plaster lose its' key to the underlying brickwork? Any possibility of damp there?

 

[Mike-W]

Hi all
Thanks for the replies, no its not damp -some of the walls are internal, I think the base coat (sand and cement) may have been mixed too weak as we are getting some ‘sand dust’ where the top skim coat is cracking away after the base has started disintegrating, I think this is referred to as ‘Live Plaster’ I don’t have many units to go on the wall but I take your points about fixing wall units onto plasterboard, I guess I need to get a price from a plasterer to replaster.

Mike

 

[HudsonCarpentry]

You might want to consider using bitumen. i have done a few garages in bathrooms and in other rooms and a few time the BCO has wanted us to tank the room in this first (may want to find out if its required on yours.

If your doing it your self then i would batten using 2x2 at 400mm centres noggins every 4ft.

Place a breathable membrane on the back of this batten or over the front but place insolation in first (better u factor save money on bills and all that) then plasterboard over this.

Then you can practise your skimming skill some more on a flat surface, if you make mistakes you can just tile over it and if you give up you can tile straight onto the boards (seal them first).

Good luck.