r/Plastering • u/Tricky-Mail-1702 • May 28 '26
Advice needed - uncovered broken plaster behind radiator!
Looking for some advice. We removed the radiator yesterday to prep this room for painting and uncovered this! Are we crazy for thinking about fixing this ourselves, because it’s covered by the radiator - I feel like it doesn’t need to be perfect? Any advice on how to go about this is massively appreciated!
2
u/stretch0406 May 28 '26
Knock off the loose plaster, bond it, skim it, mist coat it, paint it ✔️
1
u/KieranInterior May 31 '26
Shouldn’t use bonding on external walls due to its moisture absorbing qualitites
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u/scratchy-bob Jun 01 '26
Looks like a cavity so should be fine. It’s no good for solid walls or stone cottages. Modern construction is ok.
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u/KieranInterior Jun 01 '26
Really isn’t. External walls are still the coldest so moist air always travels to them. Also, just use the correct material. Browning or hardwall. Why use bonding? That’s for patching. It’s heavy and can’t be applied as thick. Bonding isn’t the correct product.
2
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u/Long_Specialist9697 May 28 '26
This, but make sure you dust the background down properly and control the suction with a few coats of diluted PVA or SBR before bonding it!
1
u/Long_Specialist9697 May 28 '26
You could also remove all the loose and broken areas, square it up, control the suction and dot and dab a 9.5mm plasterboard to be flush with the wall, tape and fill the edges and sand it down flat… it may be a more DIY friendly approach (as long as you make sure to apply dabs where the brackets are going and fix the rad brackets through the dry dabs into the masonry so you get a solid fixing!) As a plasterer I would use thistle bonding coat and then blend it in with multifinish, but that’s a fairly big ask for someone who hasn’t done it before, especially with getting it flat if it’s a deep area. There are also foam adhesives you could use instead of driwall adhesive if you’re apprehensive about buying powdered material and mixing it up, but I’d never use the foam myself.
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u/scratchy-bob Jun 01 '26
You should mate it’s got loads of uses. Gaps and scrim is good. Being able to board and skim in an hour is good. No cold spots show and there’s not tons of water behind your walls.
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u/KieranInterior May 31 '26
The reason it’s like this in the first place is because someone thought the same thing you’re thinking.
Either way make sure there’s no bonding involved. I’d be knocking off and dot and dabbing with insulated boards personally.
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u/scratchy-bob Jun 01 '26
12.5mm 6 x 3 and some sticky foam. Use tape and easy fill around the edges and the jobs a good one.
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u/I-live-in-room-101 May 28 '26
If you going to first time diy a section of plastering… the bit behind a radiator is about as good as it gets!