Each owner of an apartment or a private house solves the problem of leveling the walls with his own hands in different ways. There are several ways. They will help to cope with the solution of the problem without the involvement of specialists. Which ones - we will consider in our today's article.
Where to start the main work?
First of all, you should inspect the premises to determine the amount of work to be done. Preparatory measures are the basis of everything. This is plastering or puttying the work surface. The future appearance and service life largely depend on how well it will be produced.
Do-it-yourself wall alignment is done before applying any coating: wallpaper, tile or subsequent painting. You can achieve perfect smoothness by using building mixtures, putty or drywall sheets.
Plaster
Do-it-yourself leveling of walls with plaster is considered the cheapest way, since you will have to spend less personal money onpurchase of the necessary material. However, you need to have some skills to perform these jobs. First of all, preliminary work should be done. This is an almost complete removal of the old layer, right down to its base, since even seemingly quite strong old plaster peels off over time. This will lead to a negative result. All the effort and materials spent on repairs will be in vain.
One of the best ways to level walls with your own hands is to use a batten. Since this work is quite difficult, requiring time and effort, you need to be prepared that something may go wrong at the beginning. But we'll fix it. Diligence and desire will help any beginner to cope with the problem.
Alignment with beacons
Before the process of installing beacons, you need to mark the walls. This is necessary in order to correctly and evenly install special galvanized profiles. Aligning the walls along the lighthouses with your own hands will not only help control the sufficient application of the prepared solution, but will also greatly facilitate working with it. To do this, you need metal profiles that will be mounted on the wall in a vertical position through a certain segment, not exceeding a two-meter distance. A building level is required. It is needed to constantly control the evenness of surfaces.
Before you start leveling the walls with your own hands, the work surface should be treated with a primer and dried well. It will helpget a stronger adhesion of the solution to the wall. If the level of curvature exceeds two centimeters, then it is recommended to use a reinforcing mesh under the solution. It will be an additional guarantee of the strength of the finished surface.
What to prepare?
During the work you will need materials:
- Gypsum-based special mix.
- Trowels and spatulas of various widths.
- A handy container for preparing a solution.
- Construction mixer to get a homogeneous mass.
In addition, when removing old plaster, you should have a grater, perforator and hammer. As a fixing material to the profiles, a ready-made plastering solution is used. You can use plastic or metal fasteners. However, it should be borne in mind that their use will lead to an increase in the thickness of the coating, as well as additional material costs. Therefore, aligning the walls with lighthouses with your own hands will require some skill and time.
Plastering Methods
In order to qualitatively level the walls with plaster with your own hands, the application technology is used in several rows:
- The first layer is applied with the prepared solution in the form of sprays. It is used to better bond the base layer to the work surface. The recommended thickness is a few millimeters.
- After that, soil is applied to the scattered solution between the beacons. The main work is carried out with the help of a widespatula. The thickness can be up to five centimeters. This is the leveling layer. Spatula movements are carried out in a zigzag manner, and this continues until the walls are completely plastered. After the work done, the beacons are removed. The resulting recesses are sealed with mortar. The finished wall will now take several days to dry completely.
- The next intermediate step before applying the final layer is to level the corners of the walls with your own hands. Compared to the main work done, this is not difficult to do. Since the surface is small, small spatulas should be used.
- The final step is the application of the main layer, which evens out all minor flaws. Its thickness should not exceed three millimeters. After drying, the working surface is cleaned with graters and trowels with sandpaper of various grain sizes.
Apply surface plastering is most appropriate in rooms where there is a large vertical deviation, as the material is quite heavy and creates a huge load on the walls.
Alignment without beacons
In rooms where the surfaces are fairly even, repairs are carried out without additional devices: profiles and rails. The start of construction work always begins with cleaning the work surface, removing dust and other debris. Do not forget about the primer, which is applied at least two layers. For better adhesion, it is recommended to make notches. Alignment of walls with plasterhands without beacons are often used for finishing outbuildings. It does not require a perfectly flat surface. It is enough that they are visually even and have no visible defects. Moreover, the application of plaster gives an additional protective layer to the materials from which the walls are built.
This method can also be used for plastering interior spaces, provided that the work surface is even. The advantages of this method are obvious. Thus, the consumption of the material used without beacons is reduced by almost half. And you can bring the coating to perfect evenness with putty.
Rotband
At present, there are a large number of dry mixes intended for manual plastering of premises. One of the best, proven on the market, is considered to be a mixture based on gypsum with the addition of light fillers. This is Rothband. It is produced by a German company. Used to decorate any room, including rooms such as the bathroom and kitchen, where the humidity is quite high.
Do-it-yourself alignment of the walls with Rotband has a great advantage over other solutions. Ready mixtures have good plasticity, practically do not shrink and do not crack as they dry. The low density of the solution reduces the load on the walls. The material sets faster, which greatly reduces the duration of the repair. It should be noted that the main work should be carried out at an air temperature of at least +18 degrees andtotal humidity not more than 60 percent.
Preparatory work is carried out in the same way as with any other surface plastering. This is wall cleaning and primer. The solution itself has the ability to set quickly. Therefore, it is recommended to cook it in small quantities. When kneading the mixture, construction mixers or a drill are used. After you need to let the composition stand for a few minutes, and then get to work.
Drywall
An easy and time-consuming way is to level the walls with drywall with your own hands. With the most minimal skills, any novice builder can handle the sheathing. This material is strong enough, easy to cut. Therefore, with its help, wall defects are easily hidden. Works of any complexity are carried out: niches, door arches and room partitions can be made. Depending on the scale of deviations, two main wall cladding methods are used: frame and frameless. In the latter case, fastening takes place directly on the work surface.
Frame method
Before starting work, remove the crumbling old plaster and wallpaper. The cleaned surface should be treated with an antiseptic solution to prevent the appearance of mold fungi. Plastering is not required as the work surface will be covered. Do-it-yourself alignment of walls with drywall with a frame requires the purchase of additional materials. These are metal profiles or wooden bars. But since the latter are subject to decay, in practice they are used significantlyless often. You will also need screws and a screwdriver. Before the start of construction work, the markings of the walls are made, along the lines of which the crate will be installed. If insulation or soundproofing of the room is required, then material intended for these purposes is placed in the gaps of the frame. The main work on installing drywall begins from the middle of the structure. Next, you need to gradually move to the corners of the room, since in these places it is sometimes necessary to cut the material. Wall cladding with drywall has many advantages. It can be used with a significant curvature of the surface, the material is universal, as it is suitable for absolutely any walls (concrete, brick, wooden surfaces). Anyone can mount it, even if they do not have sufficient skills in construction. After all, it is almost always possible to correct a mistake made, moreover, there will not be a large amount of dirt and dust. You can make repairs at any time, regardless of the air temperature.
The main disadvantage of the frame method is that the volume of the room is significantly reduced. Therefore, it is advisable not to use this method for small rooms. It is not recommended to use it for finishing rooms with high humidity. Although there are waterproof materials on the market today, their service life is negligible and the cost is high.
Frameless method
Unlike the use of lathing, do-it-yourself leveling of walls with drywall without a frame is the mosteasy and less expensive method. It is almost always used in rooms with a small area. The base material is fixed using special adhesive solutions, provided that the height of the walls does not exceed the length of the sheet (that is, no more than three meters).
Preparation of the working surface. Peeling parts of the plaster are removed, potholes are sealed. The primer is carried out with deep penetrating agents. The ideal option would be brickwork, since do-it-yourself leveling of walls without beacons can be done after surface treatment with a primer.
When installing drywall on glue, cruciform joints are not allowed. With slight differences in irregularities, the material is glued using Fügenfüller putty. It is evenly distributed around the perimeter of the sheet. For differences larger than one and a half centimeters, Perlfix glue is used. It is applied to the walls in small piles with a certain interval. In places where the difference in surface difference reaches four centimeters, strips of the base material are glued under the drywall, and only after that the sheet is glued. The imposition of the material is done neatly and quickly. The evenness of the surface is checked by level.
Putty
Do-it-yourself wall leveling with putty should be attributed to the most inexpensive methods. Before starting construction work, as with other methods of interior decoration, the working surface is cleaned with a mandatory primer. This will ensure a tighter adhesion of the material to the wall. When embeddingirregularities, putty with a large texture is used, and an elastic mass is required for fine finishing. It is able to provide a perfectly flat surface that is suitable for painting or wallpapering. Putty can be applied on any surface. But wood and concrete walls work best.
To level the walls with your own hands, you will need some materials and tools:
- Putty.
- Primer coat.
- Set of different size spatulas.
After applying the first thin layer up to three millimeters thick of the finished material, the surface should dry well. Next, the primer is evenly applied. The final stage is the leveling of the surface with an additional layer of putty, not exceeding one millimeter. After complete drying of the wall surface, it is cleaned with fine-grained sandpaper. Finished surfaces are used for tiling, wallpapering, painting.
Conclusion
So, we figured out how you can level the wall with your own hands. In addition to the proposed alignment methods, other options are used. Now on the building materials market there is a huge range of wall panels with which it is really possible to correct any curvature of the walls. Their variety is over the top, so you can choose the material for any style decision: plastic, solid wood, chipboard, and so on.
When taking on repairs, do not get hung up on leveling the walls in one way. Can be usedseveral of them, depending on the surfaces of the rooms.
