How and with what to plaster walls and is it necessary to do it at all? This question is faced by everyone who makes repairs or builds a house. However, this is a very important and crucial stage of finishing work, the quality of which will depend on the service life of the structure covered with plaster and the frequency of its repair. Entrust the work to specialists or do the finishing yourself - depends on your capabilities and time, more and more often the owners of the premises themselves take up the job. So what is the best way to plaster walls?
Types and forms of plaster mixes
The construction market offers a wide range of dry and ready mixes for finishing work. The advantage of ready-made solutions is convenience - you do not need to mix anything, open the package and start working. But such material will cost more than the most common dry mixes, which must be prepared independently. All packages of the semi-finished product have detailed instructions for preparing the working mixture, this process does not cause difficulties, even an inexperienced user can handle it.
According to the material of the plaster are divided into2 main groups: cement and gypsum. Cement and cement-sand mortars are used for plastering exterior walls, facades, industrial premises. Gypsum is great for interior decoration.
Types of plaster mixtures by quality
- Simple. It is applied in several layers in rooms that do not require additional finishing. These are mainly cement and cement-sand mortars.
- Improved. It is used for decoration of residential, office, public premises. This is applied using a special technology in several stages, the composition of this mixture includes substances that improve the quality of the coating.
- High quality. As a rule, these are dry or ready-made decorative plaster compositions for finishing walls of the smallest fraction using color and/or texture inclusions.
Modern decoration uses combined wall covering, when a cement-sand composition base is applied to a wall lined with bricks or blocks to level the surface, and thinner gypsum plaster is laid on top of it under wallpaper or high-quality decorative as a topcoat.
Should walls be plastered?
There are many ways to make walls and rooms look neat and tidy. If the room has even walls and does not require leveling, as, for example, during cosmetic repairs, you can do without major plastering, and limit yourself to only puttying and / or priming for wallpaper or painting.
Facades can also be finished in other ways (cladding with facadebrick or ventilated systems: panels, tiles on profiles). If the walls were previously plastered, assess the condition of the coating. In old houses, the plaster layer is removed completely or in fragments and a new layer is applied, sometimes a cement-sand mixture of small thickness is applied on top to renew and level the surface for painting.
Who to entrust plaster work?
Since using the services of professionals is not cheap (from 500 rubles / sq. M for cement and from 300 rubles / sq. M for gypsum plaster), therefore we plaster the walls with our own hands, if time permits. Plus, it will help keep the budget going.
Steps of work
To begin with, we determine which solution to plaster the walls is more rational in a particular case:
- For facades and exterior walls, it is advisable to use cement and cement-sand mortars. After hardening, such surfaces are well tolerated by harmful external influences of rain, high temperature drops, snow, and mechanical shocks. Often plastered walls are covered with facade paints, then the building acquires a neat and elegant appearance, but here it is important to choose a high-quality paint that will also be resistant to external influences.
- Cement and sand compositions are also suitable for interior decoration. If the premises are industrial, then the plastered walls are not subjected to additional finishing.
Walls in apartments and offices are covered with cement-sand mortar at the stage of construction or major repairs, when it is necessary to hide large irregularities,arising from uneven laying of blocks or bricks. As a rule, such a coating serves as the basis for:
- Insulation of walls, corners.
- Further filling with plaster compositions.
- Wallpapering.
- Tiling.
The better to plaster walls in specific conditions, figured out.
Preparation of material and tools
Before starting work, you need to stock up on the necessary set of tools and materials so that there are no difficulties and hitches in the process. For work you will need:
- Dry mix and water or ready mix.
- Drill with mixer attachment for mixing the mixture.
- Measure for water and steelyard.
- Stucco mesh to provide rigidity of a thick layer (in basements, facades).
- Dowels, self-tapping screws for fixing the grid on the wall.
- Lighthouses (special profiles for even application of mortar over the entire plane of the wall).
- Metal scissors for cutting mesh and lighthouses.
- Tape measure for accurate measurement of sizes and distances between beacons.
- Bubble level and plumb line with thread.
- Puncher for drilling holes for dowels.
- Builder's pencil (thickened) for marking.
- Trowel for throwing mortar on the wall (with manual throwing).
- Rule for leveling the bulk of the solution between the beacons.
- Set of spatulas for leveling plaster.
- Semi-trowel for leveling the cement-sand finishing layer.
- Gloves to protect hands.
- Watch fortracking the time between mixing and mortar setting.
Preparing the work surface
After you have decided how to plaster the walls, you should start preparing the walls for the workflow. Before starting work, the wall must be thoroughly cleaned of dust, dirt, foreign and protruding elements. If the surface turned out to be even and smooth, it is necessary to make serifs for better adhesion of the mortar to the wall.
Fixing plaster mesh
When plastering facades, basements, where additional insulation and application of a thick layer is necessary, a plaster mesh is attached to the primed base. It prevents the formation of cracks during the shrinkage of the building and does not allow the mortar to spread.
There are several ways to attach the grid to the wall, but the most affordable for home use is this: the dowels are connected with wire in a Z-shape, so the closest fit to the work surface is ensured. Dowel-nails are fixed in increments of about 15 cm. Fastening is done from the bottom up.
In addition, the mesh is fixed with finely chopped pieces of a metal beacon: profile fragments 2 cm long are screwed to the mesh with self-tapping screws. In this case, the trimmings of the lighthouse serve as substitutes for dowel-nails.
Setting up beacons
This procedure will ensure uniform application of the mortar over the entire plane of the wall.
The distance between adjacent beacons should be a few centimeters less,than the length of the rule.
Marking starts from the corner at a distance of 15-20 cm. Holes for dowels are made on the drawn vertical line. Further, using a level or plumb line, put the dowels on the self-tapping screws in the same plane so that the wall is smooth without drops.
Further, a small amount of solution is applied to the lines between the fasteners to fix the beacons, then by pressing the rule, the beacon is installed in the caps of the screws. The protruding solution is smeared or removed. After installing several beacons, check the evenness of the installation. After a few hours, the wall is ready for plastering.
Wall plastering technology
Let's consider how to plaster walls with cement mortar. We prepare the solution according to the instructions on the package. To do this, we use a steelyard and a measure for water in order to accurately observe the proportions of substances. Mixing is done with a drill with a mixer.
We plaster the walls along the beacons like this: using a trowel, we throw the mortar onto the wall evenly over the entire plane and, using the rule, level it. Using spatulas, we correct small irregularities. If you need to apply a large layer of mortar, you must do this in several stages with thinner layers, otherwise the thick layer to be laid will fall off or drain.
If no further finishing is expected, it is advisable to grout. To do this, the same solution is diluted with water to a creamy state, applied to dried plaster and rubbed withusing a trowel.
If subsequent finishing is implied (puttying or wallpapering right away), the dried plastered surface is cleaned with sandpaper to remove possible irregularities and traces of spatulas and primed with special compounds.
The given technology describes how to plaster walls with cement-sand mortar. Other types of plaster coatings are applied in a similar way.
Gypsum plasters
Now let's look at how to plaster a wall with gypsum plaster.
Unlike cement mortar, gypsum plaster is more often used as a finishing layer in finishing, because it has a finer fraction and gives the walls an even, well-groomed appearance, it can be colored and textured.
Also, gypsum plaster can be applied as a base for further finishing directly on the laid wall. In this case, the application technology remains the same: cleaning the surface, priming, placing beacons, applying the solution. Gypsum compounds are applied lighter than cement, this work is easy to handle. Basically, gypsum plasters are sold in the form of dry mixes, the preparation of the working composition should not cause difficulties - detailed instructions are everywhere attached.
More often, gypsum plasters produce a thin filling of the cement-sand layer, having previously primed it.
We plaster the walls with our own hands also with decorative compositions. Especially if you want to give the walls a unique pattern. There are special plastic compositions with which you can apply the mostdifferent textures and ornaments.
The choice is yours
How to plaster the walls - everyone's personal choice. The most important thing when choosing a material is to take into account the conditions in which it will have to serve so that there are no problems during operation. As you can see, cement mortars are universal and can serve anywhere, but for interior decoration they often require additional coating. Walls with cement-sand cladding are guaranteed to withstand various suspended structures. Gypsum plaster will give your wall a neater, smoother look and is easier to apply, but if it is chosen as the base layer, it can be difficult to hang cabinets because of the softness of the plaster, although it will hold up well.
In any case, the plastered surface always lasts a long time, this way of finishing any walls and rooms is the simplest and most versatile. How to plaster walls - choose wisely!
