Fixing oak skirting to old walls

[nothanks]

I'm about to fit some oak skirting in a room with lime plaster over solid concrete blocks. Down near floor level there are large gaps where the plaster and render has gone. I'll be screwing to the block and plugging the holes, but how do I support the bottom of the skirting? All I can think of is to cut a 1"-1.5" wide strip in the plaster/render so I can fix a batten around the room and then fixing the bottom of the skirting to this batten, but that's a lot of work. How else can I do it?

Also, there are several external corners that need to be closely mitred (the oak will be oiled, not painted) so how do I make sure they fit and stay closed?

[Roger Hayter]

Dunno, but don't assume the corners are right angles!

[John Rumm]

If you need support to stop it tilting as you fix it, then some loose offcuts of 2x1 or similar can be dropped in the relevant places. For longer term support you could use the "board fix" expanding PU foam (its designed for fixing PB to irregular walls). That will take of the space and glue it in place on the bits with missing support.

When fixing, only fix to the high points. (A straight skirting with a varying width of filler behind in most cases looks less objectionable than a board the follows the contours of the wall and highlights all the variations).

Leave the wood in the room for several days to allow it to acclimatise first before cutting in. Then measure (and angle finder is good, but a carpenters beven and protractor will do fine so long as you can divide by two ;-)) and cut the actual angle you require for the mitre rather than just assume its going to be a 90 degree corner.

I normally glue the corners when assembling, and then drive a couple of pins into the joint from both directions. You will need some stainless or passivated pins so as not to stain on oak.

[nothanks]

Thanks, I hadn't heard of that. Are you thinking of this:

?

That's interesting - I'd assumed that the end grain wouldn't glue well enough to bother.

Another decision I need to make is whether to scribe it to the parquet floor or whether to add an oak scotia. Initially I was planning to scribe it but the gap between the parquet and wall is about 22mm in places so the moulding is getting attractive because I could use 20mm skirting.

[Brian Gaff]

Indeed not, However, in my old house I got away with just a few wood blocks of the depth of the plaster and screwed through those into the main wall structure, its now 30 years on and they are still there. :-)

However this was bog standard skirting, not posh oak.

Bryan

[RJH]

Afraid I can't offer anything constructive, but a question if I may - how do you join the skirting along a length so it looks good? Say if the room is 4.5m and the skirting comes in 3m lengths. Is following the grain quite critical?

[Tricky Dicky]

Where you need to join skirting in a straight run, saw an internal mitre on the end of one length and an external mitre on the joining end of the next piece and simply overlap the mitres when fixing. If you used the tradition al method of fixing skirting to wedges driven inbetween the bricks you coul d arrange the join to coincide with one of the wedges thus the fixing nails would help keep the mitres together. Never simply butt up two straight cut s together you will never conceal the join no matter how much you fill any shrinkage gaps.

Richard

[alan_m]

That's how the skirting on my 1905 house was originally fitted and how the replacement skirting is fitted. However it appears that the original skirting may have been fitted first with the wood blocks acting as spacers and then the wall was plastered later.

The only advice would offer if using this method is make sure that the wooden spacers are FIRMLY connected to the wall and the front surface is true and not sloping in any direction. I used small packing pieces at the back of the blocks whilst screwing them in to true up the front.

[John Rumm]

Yup that kind of thing. (TS have one at 2/3rds the price)

For real oak I would probably paint some glue on both cut ends and let it sink in a bit. Then apply glue again and assemble. Have some fine oak sawdust handy to massage into any gaps where it can combine with the glue to form a colour matched filler.

or 20mm with a packer behind and a little more filling at the top?

[John Rumm]

If you put opposing mitres on the ends of the boards, then you get a bigger (partially long grain) glue area, and you hide the obvious "straight line" join. You can also pin through the face to reinforce the join.

[nothanks]

I'd been wondering about doing that but adding a strip of oak to the back of the skirting at the top to make it thicker without the filler.

[John Rumm]

Yup that works as well - If you are after a more elaborate looking profile on the top of the skirting then you can use this trick to build it up a bit. (or get even more fancy and profile your spacer with a router first)

[Tim Watts]

I just cut a mitre on both ends and overlapped them - sanded to get a smooth surface.

To complete the answer, I fixed every couple of ft with 2" stainless (recommended with oak, that or brass) 5mm woodscrews (the type with a plain shank and slight taper).

Used a plug cutter + pilot on the board and then knocked a plug in over the screw.

[RJH]

Thanks for the answers. It was more whether having unpainted skirting and a 'rich' natural wood like oak looked a bit odd at break points. I was thinking of it in my hallway, for example - about 5m, whether it would look obvious?

[John Rumm]

No more so than an oak floor etc. The natural variation is one of the things that sets real wood apart. One could always sort through the planks before you start and arrange them in a pleasing end match order.

[marcgreene22]

replying to Brian Gaff, marcgreene22 wrote: Hi i had the same problem, what i got advised to do was use some form of gripfill and pin to the wall until it went off and mine is still fine to this day, luckily the place i got my skirting from did a product called demsun and i found that better than your standard gripfill

[marcgreene22]

replying to nothanks, marcgreene22 wrote: Hi i had the same problem, what i got advised to do was use some form of gripfill and pin to the wall until it went off and mine is still fine to this day, luckily the place i got my skirting from did a product called demsun and i found that better than your standard gripfill