Reskim over lime

Joined
2 Nov 2013
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United Kingdom
Hi Guys,

First post so hope it's not too long.

Here's the situation. We have old lime plaster in a post ww2 ex council house - it is solid red brick with a pebble dash render on the outside. The plaster going up the stairs is blown in a few places so I've hacked away any blown plaster and started to patch with hardwall.

The plan was now to re-skim all with multifinish. I've done a tester on a small wall upstairs and after a coat of PVA the day before, and another before doing the skim seems to work well - no cracking and feels very solid, a week or two later and still looks and feels fine.

I've seen mixed answers about whether skimming over lime is a good idea - I've heard a lot about lime being able to "breathe" and that stopping damp. However, the walls have been papered with woodchip for years with about a million coats of paint over it (some of them look like they were gloss) - so I wouldn't have thought the wall could really breathe anyway. The woodchip and left over adhesive has now all been scraped of course.

Is going ahead with my plan of skimming over with multifinish a really bad idea? We can't really afford to get it re limed.

The other idea was to strip it all and dot and dab, but I don't really see how this would help as dot and dab skimmed with multi isn't going to breathe either.

Any answers are much appreciated.
 
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I have no problem with skimming over lime plaster, I am doing a room up in my house at the moment and I have 2 lath and plaster walls that have cracks on them so I have taped all the cracks with 4" fibre tape and unibonded over them to keep them fixed on .And I skimmed over them yesterday with 2 coats of multi. I also did the same in another bedroom. As long as you coat the walls with a good strong coat of unibond and let it dry then before you skim it roller another coat over it and skim when it picks up a bit, No doubt you will get the purists that will say it's a no no but it's in my own house and I can live with it, Your choice at the end of the day.. ;)
 
Many thanks for the replies guys - certainly puts my mind at ease.
 
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id say its ok with 2 coats of a good uni bond with some sand in it or maybe even a coat of blue grit or bond-it.?????
 
On the small wall I did a few weeks ago I used 2 coats of PVA at about 50% mix and then one final (allowed to go tacky with about 70% water) just before the skim and it seems to have held up pretty well. I gave it a mist coat yesterday and no signs of cracking or anything so hoping all is OK.
 

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