Using wood to fix a plaster wall!!

You leave it up to hubby,because you're all muddled. ;-)

The way I usually do this is to use bits of newspaper stuffed in the holes, and then scrap plasterboard jammed in, then slap plaster type filler over the top, and finally take it all back to smooth with an orbital sander.

Can you clarify what he's going to do with these wood pieces, and what's going to be plastered, etc?

David

He intends to use these flat wood pieces to fill in several holes in the plaster and lathe walls. The holes vary in size from relatively small (5x8) to larger (22x15). I believe he intends to try to make some holes larger so he can have the wood attach to two studs. He is then likely to use polyfilla to fill in the gaps between the wood (it's actually 5/8 plywood) and the original plaster and lathe.

Can you tell me why he SHOULDN'T do it this way (or if he shouldn't!), and what the ideal method is for a DIYer who doesn't want to do a bodge job?

Thanks for any help!

You're right, he's wrong - that's just the way it is (surely as a woman you're used to this by now?)

If he uses sheet wood of any kind, the plaster will not bond to it, if however he cuts new laths from any scrap timber and nails these on, he can plaster it as normal, (once he's stripped back to the studding of course) I suggest 'Gyproc Bonding' or 'Brownin' for the base coat and multi- finish for the skimming, skimming over browning or bonding should be done on the same day...once dried it is almost impossible to skim to a decent finish due to it's absorbency.

Even the thinnest plasterboard would probably be too thick and the bumps would be noticable.

Only slight downside is that wood moves as the humidity changes and its likely you will get crack lines appearing in the skim coat..

That's why its best to use plaster supported on whatever substrate you can find - balled up newspapers is always good ;-)

Good advice but I'd use "bonding coat" not browning which isn't grippy enough for this IMO . Also as an alternative to using wooden laths, use expanded metal lath.