Plastering behind skirting

Hi,

I've recently redone the floor in a first floor bedroom, and am soon going to be replacing the skirtings. Being a Victorian terraced house, the old skirtings were attached to wooden battens nailed to the wall; while I could recreate this it seems needlessly complicated, particularly since they'd probably have to be individually sized to get them to support the skirtings fully.

Instead it has been suggested to me that I could just fill the gap (to within an inch or so of the floor) with bonding plaster, and then simply screw the skirting directly to this. This sounds great, but I have two concerns:

1) The gap is quite deep - between 15 and 25mm in most places. Is this too thick to plaster? Will I need multiple coats, or is there a product I can use to do it in one go (I obviously don't care about the finish)?

2) One wall has been dry lined at some point. The gap between the brickwork and the front edge of the plaster varies between 25mm and nearly 50mm(!) I guess plastering this directly would be daft. Would dry lining this gap with long low strips of plasterboard and then going over with bonding work here? I suppose at that point I might be better off just making my variable width wooden battens :-/

Many thanks,

Lucian

 

You could apply the bonding in two layers but be aware it could take a week to dry out if not longer. Use what you have to pack it out then skim over the top to bring it flush, grip fill the skirting whenever possible, saves filling any holes then.

 

you could do that.

however my preferred method, and it makes a good job, is to fix two horizontal wooden battens to the wall, about the same thickness as the plaster, say 18x18mm

You only need to pack them out at the fixing screws. Nomoremails or cheaper equivalent will do as it sets firm, or you can make wedges or packing pieces. tighten the screws until the battens are very even with the plaster face. One lined up to the top of the skirting, and one say 25mm up from the floor. use filer to tidy the rough joint between the top batten and the plaster. When all set, you can lightly screw the skirting to the battens. You only need small countersink screws.

 

Another method is to dab plasterboard in the gap flush to the plaster and then gripfill or similar the skirting on presuming it covers the bottom of where the plaster ends.

 

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