I had a plasterer come around to give a quote to re-skim two rooms. The existing skim on the walls in really flaky. Some of it just comes off with a scrapper.
I’ve taken all the loose bits off, the rest of the wall is now sound. No hollow sounds, or skim flaking off. Underneath the skim is a dryish yellowish undercoat. It is a bit powdery but its stuck solid to the walls.
The wall has some areas where there is skim on it as its stuck well and others where it has been taken off completely to the backing coat. I’d say its 80% taken off with the remainder is patchy skim.
The plasterer has said he needs to put a thin layer of bonding/hardwall over the whole wall. Then he will put the skim coat on top of this. He said if you put it direct onto the wall the skim coat will crack (I mentioned PVA to him, but he said that doesn’t work, eventually it will end up cracking due to heat etc) He said if you don’t do this then the next time you take the wallpapers off the skim will come away from the wall, just like it has done now.
He said most skimmers don’t do this as its too much effort but its the correct way to do it. He also said on other jobs that he does he puts the bonding on, then some kind of plastic mesh is pushed into the bonding. Then he skims on top of this. This way he claims the skim never cracks.
Is he correct with this advice?
I’ve taken all the loose bits off, the rest of the wall is now sound. No hollow sounds, or skim flaking off. Underneath the skim is a dryish yellowish undercoat. It is a bit powdery but its stuck solid to the walls.
The wall has some areas where there is skim on it as its stuck well and others where it has been taken off completely to the backing coat. I’d say its 80% taken off with the remainder is patchy skim.
The plasterer has said he needs to put a thin layer of bonding/hardwall over the whole wall. Then he will put the skim coat on top of this. He said if you put it direct onto the wall the skim coat will crack (I mentioned PVA to him, but he said that doesn’t work, eventually it will end up cracking due to heat etc) He said if you don’t do this then the next time you take the wallpapers off the skim will come away from the wall, just like it has done now.
He said most skimmers don’t do this as its too much effort but its the correct way to do it. He also said on other jobs that he does he puts the bonding on, then some kind of plastic mesh is pushed into the bonding. Then he skims on top of this. This way he claims the skim never cracks.
Is he correct with this advice?