Warped skirting boards

[taurus26]

Hi please forgive me if i sound a bit stupid but I have moved into a new property and have just had the walls re skimmed and painted in the bedroom. This has bare wood skirtings from the previous owner. All the skirts on the walls are perfect except the window wall which the skirt goes behind the radiator. This has about an 1/2 inch gap between wall and skirt at one end is warped inwards floor end. The masonry nails wont knock in any further to make it flush and there is a huge gap behind the skirt with nothing to try to glue it too.

The rest of the room is perfect, painted and ready etc and I am havin a nightmare with this.

I am wondering if i could attach 2 batons with no nails and screw the skirting to this when the adhesive dries.

Please help!!

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Personally I'd pull that section off, clean it up (and the wall) and reattach it. If it's pushed off the wall already and won't nail down it's possibly already held in place with a grip adhesive. If you want it dead flat when it goes back drill, plug and screw it in place as well as using Gripfill/PinkGrip/similar. Also chop away any plaster snots which are pushing it off the wall at floor level before refixing

 

[JohnD]

if you fix battens to the brick or blockwork, using plasplugs and long screws, then yes, this will give you a good surface to screw your skirting to. The wall is probably not flat, so put packing behind the battens to make them level.

I use one batten level with the top of the skirting, and one about 18mm up from the floor. You might have to chip off some plaster to get the battens level.

If the wall is crumbly, or you hit a mortar joint where you need to screw, drill out a hole that is plenty deep enough and wide enough for the plasplug, wash out the dust with a fine water jet, give it a few minutes to dry, then squirt no-more-nails or similar into the hole, starting with the nozzle right into the back of the hole so there is no air gap. Push the plasplug into this, smooth off, and leave it overnight to set. The plasplug will then be gripped firmly and will not spin or pull out of the hole when you drive the screw home the next day. You can use a long screw as a handle to push the plasplug into place, just a couple of turns into the plug so it is not expanded.

This really does work.

 

[joinerjohn]

It could be the case that this bit of skirting board has actually been cut slightly (a few millimetres) longer than the length it's fitting into. This alone would stop it fixing back to the wall. Personally, I'd consider removing this piece and measuring it accurately and measure the length it has to fit into (again accurately) If it is slightly longer than the space it has to fit into, you could chop a few mill off and then refit.

 

[foxhole]

All skirting should have been removed prior to skim and replaced avoiding a bodge.