What's the best way to fix a wobbly architrave?

[pedr0]

All the architraves around the interior doors on my extension wobble so the paint cracks around the edges where it meets the wall and where it meets the door frame.

They are tight to the door frame, but there tends to be a mm or two gap to the plaster. So if I grab them with my fingers across the width, then I can easily rock them by a mm or two. My guess is that they were just attached with a nail gun.

2 questions:
1) How should they have been attached in the first place?
2) What's the best way to fix them in place properly now that they are already installed and painted?

Thanks.

 

[pedr0]

Hi everyone.

I've taken a short video of one of the worst offenders in case it helps. What's the best way to share that video?

If they are just held on with nail gun pins, do they require removal and reattaching, or is there a way that I can fix it properly without taking it off?

If I do remove it, what is the right way to attach it? Nails and a bead of gripfill?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[johnny2007]

Don't remove.
Use Soudal fixall to fill that gap between architrave and wall trying to get behind it.
Once dry it will hold and it's paintable.

 

[pedr0]

Just to complete the thread...

I found that on many of my architraves, I just couldnt' get soudall fixall into the gap. It was feeling like too much of a battle, I wasn't able to get it neat enough, or give me the confidence that it was going to be firm all the way across - particularly for those where the gap was too small to squeeze soudall deep enough.

So I ended up taking them off, which was very easy given how poorly they had been fixed. I scraped off any lumps of plaster under the architrave so that the architrave sat as flush to the wall as possible. I then put some scratches in the plaster under the architrave to provide a key for fixing.

I used decorators caulk as an adhesive (I find Geocel painters mate is sooo much easier to use than any others I've tried - silky smooth), which held it to the plaster. And because the caulk shrinks slightly as it dries, if anything it pulls the architrave even tighter to the wall as it cures. And then I nailed them as well to hold them tight on the frame side. I then put a super thin bead around both sides of the moulding - i.e. on the wall/architrave _and_ on the frame/architrave sides.

The result is great in terms of how firm they are. Yet, I suspect it wouldn't cause too much damage if they needed to be removed. And moreover, it's amazing how different the overall impression is. The house just visually appears more solidly built when there are no hairline cracks around the mouldings.

Thanks everyone for their help.

 

[johnny2007]

Interesting.
I never thought of using caulk to fix skirting and architrave.
It's my fixation on doing things to outlast me.
But yes, caulk is cheaper, easy to clean and flexible and there's not much an architrave will have to support, so by all means, i will use it next time.
Good call.