plasterboard onto old plaster?

[David]

Hi!

I've got a 50 year old house with crumbly, brittle plaster on the walls - it's not on the verge of falling off but wherever there's a chip/break in the surface the stuff around it just crumbles away. It's totally dry (perhaps too dry) but blown in a few places and drilling holes usually requires an attack of the polyfiller afterwards. In the dinning room I've put 3 skim layers over the old plaster and this has made it look nice and smooth but this illusion faulters at the drill test.

Anyway, onto the walls in the new baby room that are going to have to be resilliant to the (lack of) attention of a growing boy. I'm not keen to attempt full-on plastering and we want to avoid the cost of getting someone in so the only way left, it would seem, to have tough, even walls is to put up plasterboard. But, my concern is that the existing plaster ain't that great.

Is it advisable to take down the old plaster or, as a whole entity, would you expect 50 year old plaster to be strong enough to hold plasterboards dotted&dabbed into place? If the latter, should I repair the old blown plaster first (seen the method in the FAQ list)?

Thanks for any advice, David.

[Lobster]

I think unless it's *really* badly blown, the plasterboards would hold fine, without repairing the old plaster. The plasterboard will act like a splint to hold it all together. If you're really worried, one option might be to hack away a few smallish areas of plaster to expose the brick, so that in some areas at least, the plasterboard adhesive is bonding the board directly to brick.

However, you'll make the room quite a bit smaller by doing it like this rather than removing the old plaster - does that matter to you? Having said that it's a very messy job!

Finally, as an alternative solution, have you considered repairing the blown plaster as per the FAQ (PVA solution and syringes IIRC?!), and then covering the whole lot with heavy duty lining paper before painting or wallpapering, whatever you'll do? That would cover a multitude of sins with a lot less hassle than either of the above, and I suspect even cope with a toddler bouncing round the room (been there, done that).

hth David

[Kalico]

If the majority of the underlying plaster is blown then you are hardly lkikely to get a good result with dot and dab, though you might want to try screwing battens through the plaster to the brick beneath and then mounting the boards on these.

Rob

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[John Woodhall]

Rip it all off and do it properly. Then you know it will last another 50 years. Messy yes but a bit of plaster dust is hardly the end of the world. I know I took down a lath and plaster ceiling today. Just buy a good dustmask. :-)

[Grunff]

Your walls sound a lot like ours were. We chipped off all the plaster that would come off easily, and left the rest on. PVAd the walls, then dot&dabbed 12mm PB on. Very good results.

[Rod Hewitt]

[e-mail] (David) wrote in news: [e-mail]:

In my last house someone had put up plasterboard a little away from the old plaster. Used to listen to bits of plaster falling off in the evenings. Eventually I could stand it no more and ripped it all down and replastered.

[Martyn Pollard]

evenings.

replastered.

I'm buying a Victorian era terrace house and the plaster is reasonably stable, yet its lumpy and the walls aren't great to look at. I think theres some merit from removing the old stuff and getting back to brick. I wonder if its worth having an initial layer of celotex, then plasterboard on top of that. Other than cost of celotex and loss of a few cms, I don't see any other issues.

What options do I have as a finish to the plasterboard? I've never done plastering before but I'm willing to have a go. I've seen it done with taperboard and taped joints, but is that really the way to go?

Martyn