Patching old plaster

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12 Sep 2012
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Hi there,

I've just had some rewiring done in our new (but old 1930s) house. All the walls are lime plaster over bricks. I need to patch up some cracks in the walls and fill the gaps from the electrical rewiring - obviously I've read many times that skimming over lime plaster with modern plaster is a no-no.

However at this stage I only want to fill the gaps and cracks. I've read that wickes one-coat plaster is suitable for the job, is this correct? I've also read that PVA is another no-no for lime plaster, can Zinsser gardz be used? (I want to cover all the wall because it had wallpaper on it) and it might be a good idea to put it on before patching with the one coat plaster.


Many Thanks!
 
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Well there are millions of homes all over the uk with pva and gypsum over lime plaster, worth bearing that in mind, the first colourful paints in the 1950's were made with PVA.

This is what I used to do as a sparky and results can be as good as you like depending on how long you spend on the second stage.

Stage one, dampen down the chase, take caution and turn the electricity off. if the wall is sucking the water in it's often better to pva within the chase to stop the new plaster drying out and cracking on the edges, this will make the chase stand out. once thats done, with the pva tacky fill the chase out flush with one coat plaster, push it right in the chase and then rule it off flush with the original surface, if you leave it a bit proud its ok as its really easy to sand too.

once that has set, if you dont need to rub it back anywhere you can go to stage two

stage two is to get jointing compound, or easyfil, its a fine filler that is easily sand-able and will fill minor imperfections. dust the chase down and apply the jointing compound using a filling scraper, spread it across the width of the chase all the way up and then run your scraper all the way down or up the chase, keeping it slightly off the original wall. once that had set you can sand it back with some 120 paper until smooth and flush, you can repeat this stage until you are happy.

Dont forget to mist coat the chase a few times before painting the wall.
 
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Thanks! In the end, all the walls ended up being PVAd and two coats of multi-finish by a professional plasterer. Been over a month and the result is amazing!
 

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