Another plaster thread. Sorry about that.

[AJB Temple]

Since this is now a plastering forum, I will ask a genuine question in this area. Our house, recently bought, has every wall plastered in what the estate agent calls “old English” style. This is rough and irregular finish, not smooth. It is almost liek really thick paint. I don’t like it but I can live with it if I have to. Thankfully, all of the ceilings are perfectly smooth. It is not Artex or similar – as far as I can tell it was deliberately plastered this way back in the early 1980s. All of the walls are painted white. There are a few steels holding the place up and these are boxed in with plasterboard, and smooth plastered. The house is timber framed (16th C origins, unlisted, badly hacked about) and there are quite a lot of old exposed oak timbers so plaster edges are often not linear.

I am in no rush to do this as we are doing various building works that are much more of a priority, but there are some areas where I really want smooth walls eventually. It is a fairly large house so a lot of square metres of walls.

Question: Is it practical to skim over this painted rough plaster finish?

I am presuming that this is really a pro job. I have not employed a plasterer for many years, and the last time I did I remember it as being very heavy and very dirty work. I don’t think I have the stamina or skill or knowledge to do it myself. I have no idea what I should pay or how long it might take.

I live near Tunbrdge Wells so if anyone knows a friendly plasterer in that area of Kent please let me know.

Thanks, Adrian

 

[Wuffles]

I'd skim it all, and even though I can do it, I would pay some youths to do it. Remember Loadsamoney? Get three quotes before you become a "story" at the boozer on a Friday afternoon.

A photo of the finish you have now might help though as it might need knocking back to something flatter first of all.

 

[Zeddedhed]

Adrian, I can recommend a good plasterer if you want. Lives in Pembury. I'll PM you his details when I touch down at the office later.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Can it be overskimmed? Almost certainly, but to be 100% sure you'd need to confirm exactly what the existing stuff is (it'd be worth checking quite carefully - and it may contain asbestos). Cheers, W2S

e.g. using something like http://www.british-gypsum.com/products/ ... -unifinish

 

[blackrodd]

There's a lot of work involved, Deciding if you will remove the switches and sockets, architraves and skirtings etc
If its pink or grey and smooth composition, its more than likely a skim finish that was laid on the wall then the trowel was
pulled straight across the wall, using the rounded centre of the well "bowed " middle of the trowell,
Known Down here in Sunny Devon as a draggy finish, there's likely very small gritty bits on the surface.
I've done a few of these, Skimming the surface of any finish as above or Artex will not completely hide or lose what you are trying to cover, but it will lose most of undulations.
The paint finish needs to be sound, and Unibonded with red tinned interior PVA, I don't risk cheap stuff, skimming on top when it's tacky, it's an adhesive, but dry and shiny it is a sealer, which is what you need.
Mix 1/3rd Unibond to 2/3rds water, scrape the larger lumps and bumps and apply the Unibond sealer with brush and roller, be careful with "spatter" as it dries very hard and makes a mess of glass for instance.
The skim would be better a little "roundy" or thicker, when applied, board finish is stronger than multi use
Flatten as you go. Check the bag dates, you don't want any "woofy" bags that go off like a rocket, sometimes in the bucket.
1.5-2mm is thick for skim so if you wanted a really flat finish you would need to do it twice, exactly the same process for a decent job
As Wuffle says you need a decent plasterer, not John Waynes Cousin there's a lot of finishing to do edges etc, do it once and do it right!
You could do all the prepping, and get a price per room and a metre price, or If you got as a labour only job remember Wickes prices are very good on bag, stuff most plasters and cement, etc.
HTH Regards Rodders

 

[AJB Temple]

Thanks guys. Z, that would be appreciated. I will try to take a photo when I get home. It is surprisingly difficult to do as on a photo it looks quite a lot flatter. The swirls and undulations are probably 1 to 2 mm deep. I don't mind whipping the switches off as we have about 20 dimmers that I want to get rid of. Rads are a bit more of a pain. There are no architraves but there are pine skirtings which I am quite happy to get rid of. My preference is to do half the house at a time, late on this year, when we re-decorate. Rooms will be fully stripped, carpets binned etc, then. I just asked it now because of the other plaster thread.

 

[AJB Temple]

Photos from iPhone attached. Not brilliant but gives an idea.

 

[Wuffles]

Might need to knock off a few high spots, but looks like it'll skim fairly well from the photos. I don't think you'll have a problem really.

I've certainly skimmed worse than that.

Just my opinion. There'll be another along soon.

 

[AJB Temple]

Thanks Z for plasterer contact.

What I was really worried about was whether the skim would stick to the current surface, which is sound but probably not very porous. What I don't want is a load of blown plaster. I recognise I need a pro to size it up (no pun intended).

As an aside it is incredible how many bodge ups one can find in one house. Among loads of examples I recently discovered 4mm 3 core armoured cable running to an outbuilding and it is buried beneath a lawn. Almost 2 whole inches beneath a lawn. And I don't think any of the metal light fittings or switches in the house had the earth connected to the metal casing. In the garage they left the covers off all the junction boxes. In the hall they had screwed a coat rack to the wall and one of the fixing screws was live because it was in contact with the cable they nicked when screwing directly into the plaster. That was a bit of a shock.

 

[Wuffles]

Your plasterer will PVA it a couple of times and it'll be fine.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

AJB - nothing surprises me with electrics. My first house had the cooker running off a 6mm lead sheathed spur from the dining room light, and the second had the immersion of the same fuse as the basement lights.

 

[HappyHacker]

If that is modern plaster it may need to come off depending on the wall construction as the wall may need to breath to allow damp out and modern plasters/paints stop this from happening. It is quite common in old buildings for the wrong materials to be used over time which can cause more problems than they cure.

I have worked on a few buildings where lime plaster has been used to replace modern plaster in order to allow the walls to breath, this in turn stops damp and damage to the wall. The same problem occurs with cement renders on the outside.

Good luck.
Kevin

 

[Wuffles]

I read it as a 1980s build, good point. Serves me right for not reading properly.

 

[AJB Temple]

To be clearer: it is a barn conversion. Frame is circa 16th century allegedly. I think it is more recent by a century. Oak timber framed except where they cut out bits and replaced with steel. Some brick pillars. Timber clad externally over insulation. Most of the plaster is as far as I can tell applied to softwood stud work covered in plasterboard and pretty thickly skimmed. Some of it I plan to remove entirely. It is basically a 1980s new build inside and old frame. There are no old plaster walls, no wattle and daub or anything like that.

 

[Wuffles]

Yep, pva and skim then.

 

[RogerS]

When working on old buildings, I find that SPAB are a very useful source of information. http://www.spab.org.uk

Bodges? Beat this...when I renovated an old black and white cottage in 2009 - taking it back to the shell - I discovered that the overflow pipe from the central heating was routed to overflow into the ....

.....cold water tank.

 

[novocaine]

sounds like you got the same owner as we had.
every room is taking twice as long as it should as I go through and fix the bodges, most of which I'm sure take more time to do than just doing it right.
this month is the living room, heres the list of bodges.
-spur run of upstairs circuit to add 3 sockets in series.
-moved lightswitch using chock blocks and a horizontal cable, filled the old hole (with chock blocks) in cement render
-removed old doorway, used multifinish as bonding coat, scratchcoat and skim, it's 1" thick because they obviously didn't want to use so many bricks and did the brick work side on instead.
-central heating pipework run 2" from the wall, using blocks of wood as pipe supports, pipework in the ceiling is done using compression fittings instead of wet joints.
-windows fitted then plastic strip round the edges to hide the gap instead of repairing the plaster work.
-sections of skirting made of plaster and filler.
-chimney breast at both ends of the room, one is fine, the other goes nowhere, which isn't a problem, it was removed correctly above and the stack has been removed and the roof redone ok, the bigger issue is that when they cleared the breast from the room above they filled the flue below with bricks, plaster, concrete, wood and every other bit of rubbish they could find, then instead of removing to below floor level they filled it in with plaster (the stuff you put on the walls, used as a floor) stuck a bit of lino over it and called it good. the rubbish down the flue then settled and left and nice 12" hole beneath the surface.
- floor has been leveled, but only the main section, the alcoves had badly made cabinets in, so they left those bits.

these are the major bodges, I don't need to go in to the small decorating bodges.

the whole room is being skimmed, the breast is now gone, the bottom 2' of plaster has been removed and the damp which is all due to previous owners poor decisions is being sorted. can't blame them for the foot of sand in the cavity, but I can blame them for having cavity wall insulation fitted in a house made of porous brick, I've now got to get that removed as well, oh what fun.