Fixing skirting boards to incompletely plastered wall

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I want to fit new skirting boards. My problem is that the bottom 4-5 inches of the walls are not plastered (though the rest of them are). Obviously if I can use a 6- 8 inch skirting board it will cover this strip of bare brick, but does anyone know the easiest way to attach the board? Perhaps I should nail wooden batons to the brick and then nail/screw/ glue the skirting boards onto those, but the size of the gap may mean that I have to plane the batons a lot to get them to the right thickness, and that could be a lot of work. Alternatively, perhaps I should put a few blobs of plaster (or some other kind of filler?) at intervals along the wall, hold them in place with bits of wood positioned where the boards will go until it dries, and then remove this frame and nail/glue the skirting boards onto the dry blobs of plaster? (I’m not much of a plasterer, but could probably manage that.) Any advise gratefully received! Thanks.
 
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Is this an old house?

Traditionally the scratch coat of plaster would added with a 4-5 inch gap at the bottom - wooden wedges would then by hammered into the mortared joints (or nailed to the brick in cheaper houses. These would then be cut flush with the wall. The skirting would then be nailed to these wooden wedges and the wall plastered with a final coat down to the new skirting.

Your chances of getting wooden wedges to hold in an old wall are slim. I compromised by cutting pieces of wood to the size of the gap between with the brick and the plaster and then screwing these to the brick and nailing the skirting board to these - worked nicely - but a bit of a bugger to cut the pieces of wood to the right thickness.

You other option is to screw the skirting boards directly into the brick and just pop some pieces of wood into the void to stop the bottom of the skirting board from pulling in when you screw them on.
 
sam8364 said:
Is this an old house?

Traditionally the scratch coat of plaster would added with a 4-5 inch gap at the bottom - wooden wedges would then by hammered into the mortared joints (or nailed to the brick in cheaper houses. These would then be cut flush with the wall. The skirting would then be nailed to these wooden wedges and the wall plastered with a final coat down to the new skirting.

Your chances of getting wooden wedges to hold in an old wall are slim. I compromised by cutting pieces of wood to the size of the gap between with the brick and the plaster and then screwing these to the brick and nailing the skirting board to these - worked nicely - but a bit of a b*****r to cut the pieces of wood to the right thickness.

Thanks for this. The house is about 100 years old, and the origonal skirting boards were fixed with wedges, exactly as you describe. Very impressive workmanship, and I'd already more or less decided I wouln't be able to replicate that. (Apart form anything else, it must be hard to know where to drive the nails so as to hit the wedges - and you'd need to to hit them in the middle or they'd just split.) The way you did yours is more or less what I was expecting to have to do, but getting the wood blocks or battens the right thickness does seem likley to be a real faff. Oh well...
 
I like battens - one in line with the top of the skirting, and one an inch or two up from the floor.

If you can manipulate them so that the front face of the batten is in line with the plaster, you can patch and smooth any damaged plaster to this line before fixing the skirting. You can also take the skirting off/refix it very easily with shortish counterunk screws e.g. when fitting carpets or redecorating.

You have a gap between the batten where you can put speaker cables, phone lines and aerial coax if you want to (but not power cables, please).
 
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(Apart form anything else, it must be hard to know where to drive the nails so as to hit the wedges - and you'd need to to hit them in the middle or they'd just split.)

Did not really find this a problem - a small pencil mark on the wall indicates where the wooden blocks have been fixed - each block was a couple of inches wide and the boards nailed onto these with 40mm hidden head nails (less finishing off than having to cover over screw heads). If the blocks did split then the boards have still held tight to the wall.

My thinks was that if the boards ever needed to be removed then this method caused less damage to the old brick work that crowbaring out screw fixings.
 
I would recommend you use foam filler. squirt some water onto the brick first to dampen the dusty surface then put a small amount of the foam in short intervals along the wall and press your skirting gently onto the foam, make sure u don`t press it so it sinks in at the bottom.

Use a set square to check the skirting is sitting level then leave till the foam cure. Job done easy peasy lol
 
1511 said:
I would recommend you use foam filler. squirt some water onto the brick first to dampen the dusty surface then put a small amount of the foam in short intervals along the wall and press your skirting gently onto the foam, make sure u don`t press it so it sinks in at the bottom.

Use a set square to check the skirting is sitting level then leave till the foam cure. Job done easy peasy lol

Thanks for this: it sounds like an easy alternative. I actually finished the job about a month ago (using batons - time-consuming but worked pretty well) but I never thought about expanding foam, and will bear it in mind next time, (if there is one!).

Well, when I say finished, there is still that awkward alcove with the radiator.....!
 
i wouldnt use it in a million years. as it expands it will move the skirting out of line. Its the stuff of the devil! :LOL:
 
1511 said:
I would recommend you use foam filler. squirt some water onto the brick first to dampen the dusty surface then put a small amount of the foam in short intervals along the wall and press your skirting gently onto the foam, make sure u don`t press it so it sinks in at the bottom.

Use a set square to check the skirting is sitting level then leave till the foam cure. Job done easy peasy lol

foam :eek:

eh?

are you for real or just on a wnd up??
 
Anyone ever had experience with *********any particular company******** ? The reviews seem OK but just seeing whether anyone here had personal experience?

Thx
 
Yeah, avoid them like the plague. They are overpriced, sell poor quality items, and are very rude to customers.
 

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