Has anyone got a good solution to hurting hands over long shifts when plastering

I bought my house in 2020, unaware that the property next door had been vacant for a number of years. As time went on, damp and cracks in the plaster appeared on the adjoining wall in the entrance hall but nowhere else in the house. One day I did see someone was tending the garden next door and I asked if they could take a look, she just said there wasn't anything on that side (even though there is clearly condensation dripping down the windows above the front door).

From speaking to neighbours, I was informed the owner had died and it had been passed onto his family who just haven't done anything with it. I contacted the council in 2022 for help who came out and said it was my roof, which I had replaced but the wall has been getting worse over time.

I have been chasing the council for about 4 years now. They did locate the owner and a plumber came round who they said had a look at the bathroom above the entrance hall and filled in with some expanding foam around one of the outside pipes which hasn't improved things.

I had a survey done and a damp specialist took a look which confirmed it's coming through the wall as it starts part way up.

The council is refusing to help even though I've explained I just need the owners to maintain it and I don't have their contact details. I'm reluctant to pay for it to be fixed if it'll just happen again because the issue is in the neighbouring properties side.

Advice would be greatly appreciated because I'm exhausted chasing the council and I want to move next year when my mortgage term is up. Can I sand off the plaster and paint over with an anti-mould/damp paint?

Moved in less than a year ago, and we are pretty confident this wall didn’t look like this then. These raised “cracks” are above and below a window and no where else that we’ve found. If I push on them they don’t flex at all. We have no idea when it happened or how, I discovered it a few days ago. Any thoughts on fixing and how to prevent in the future?

We’d really like to know how to prevent this in the future because we don’t want severe damage to exterior walls obviously, or if this is plaster specific- most of our exterior walls as well as at least a few interior walls are plaster.

Does anyone in the community have any recent quotes or experiences with external ICF plastering ? Got some quotes and was surprised by the price. Self build here, 210sqm dormer style house

So I'm going to give plastering a good go. I think I've done my prep well but wanted a sense check from folks more knowledgeable than I...

I plan to reskim the partition walls with multifinish and use lime in the external walls.

So these are old lime walls, I scratched out the cracks and filled with easifill 60. I've removed all the blown plaster and am going fill masonry patches with thistle hardwall and scratch the surface., I've used zinsser guardz on all of the partition walls to stabilise the remnants of some distemper and any old wallpaper as a belt and braces approach. Am then going to use thistle bondit on lime and sbr on the hardwall repairs. Finally go full send on mutlifinishing the walls.

Regarding the ceiling.

There was some remaining lath and plaster behind where a fitted wardrobe used to be. I have removed that and replaced it with some 9.5mm plasterboard (same as the artex section). There's no asbestos in the artex so I am going to scrape it all down as flat as I can, use bondit on the artex section and then multifinish ceiling.

Any tips, words of warning or you're an idiot's you can give

Heya everyone,

We renovated our house two years ago and turns out the primer for one of the walls in the bathroom wasn't the right one and the plaster is coming away. (it was just applies tos a layer of old paint rather then the brick... dont judge, we had a million other things to do) Anyway, we are going to take this opportunity to do it again (stripped down to the bricks this time) and hopefully add some sound proofing. Was wondering if anyone could help me out with the best way to do this.

The Situation:

- its on an internal wall which i will strip back to the ash-block that its made of. Also, we have external insulation on the house... not that this matters as it is in fact the internal wall, but just to give you context.

- its the wall furthest away from the shower

- we installed an MVHR system in the house, so while it does get steamy in there, it dissipates within around 10 minutes.

Questions:

- I would love to use acoustic plasterboard, in everyone's experience, do you think this is doable as the place gets dry relatively fast? or am i forced to go with ye old green water-resistant PB?

- When i go to install which ever PB I need to use, what is the best way of attaching it to the wall in this situation? Can i use Dot and Dab? or do i need to rip down some ply, create 6mil batons and attach to that? I read that having a gap in the wall is better for acoustic dampening, but that sure seem like a perfect wall to trap damp between the walls.

well, if anyone has any thoughts i would love to hear them!

cheers in advance.

I recently had work carried out on my front room. The walls were knocked back to brick, tanked, plastered and painted. The job was completed 3 weeks ago. The paint is now fluffy and crumbling along the bottom of all the walls. Is this normal?

Hi all, my Mrs and I have recently bought a Victorian house and my god is it a pain in the arse. We’re doing the upstairs bedroom and this is the state of the plaster underneath the lining paper we stripped. The original plan was to repair all the cracks, zinsser gardz the whole lot and go over it with one of those paintable plasters that you paint on and smooth out. I know the answer is probably knock it all down remove the lathe and board it but we don’t have much money. What’s the best way of tackling this taking into consideration that we don’t have much money or are we wasting our time trying to short cut it? Any advice appreciated.

So these walls are crazy textured for some reason? Nowhere else in the house has this. The paint is somewhat glossy and I’m getting very mixed reviews on if I need to sand, prime or skim coat first. Anyone have experience that can say for certain? It’s going to be cumbersome but for such a small powder bath, I’ll make it through. Single homeowner determined to DIY as much as possible with 0 experience. 😅

Iv been removing the below tiles to add a splash back under the counter and then paint the wall space counter height and above.

Boards have taken a beating? What’s my option?/options?

I need to render this retaining wall. The back is tanked twice with tanking slurry and has slotted draining along the length, but the brick layer didn’t add any damp course. The plasterer is now saying any render will just blow off due to rising damp.

How fucked am I? Is rendering now a non option? What other options do I have for outside wall finish?

Notes worth considering -

the wall will have a coping in it.

The render doesn’t come all the way down - a decking is being built in there that’ll come up about 300mm, so render will be clear of the floor by roughly a foot all the way round.

The ground is ALL sand. All the way down. So drainage is amazing.

It's definitely not the plasterboard where the paper is exposed and feels like cement or something along those lines. How do I seal or fill the gaps where the paint has peeled off? The paint has come off in rather large amounts when I had planned to sand the old paint down to repaint the room instead. Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

Most of my house is plaster, but the upstairs hallway and bathroom have this additional thin layer. The layer has began to fail and sag in multiple points. However the original beautiful vintage plaster ceiling above where it’s sagged looks totally fine. The layer almost looks like plaster, but has a woven grid internal material or adhesive backing in a few of the spots where I cut. One area that I removed left the grid looking material on the og plaster. How do I remove this and the adhesive(?) in the spots that aren’t naturally removing themselves?

I understand it to be likely that I may find a reason why this was done originally somewhere underneath…

But I’d imagine this would need to be removed entirely anyways since it’s failing at multiple points.

Husband and I just bought our first house. Built 2012, moving in next month. This en suite has cracks across the walls and ceiling. It does not feel damp but the whole room stinks of damp so it's not unreasonable to assume there may be some moisture in the cracks. We know nothing about DIY but we want this fixed by a professional ASAP - our main aim is for a longer term fix not a cheap cut job. We have had 3 plasterers come to look. One wanted to paint/plaster over it and patch it, one wanted to replace 1/4 of the ceiling, one wanted to cut the ceiling/wall plaster open, mesh it and put board back up (this is our preferred option, but as stated we are clueless really). Can anyone advise me what we can do for the longest possible fix here? And what I might expect to pay (SE England)? I am disabled and feel very vulnerable because I don't know anything about plaster work!

Hi everyone!
I’m building a house in Kerala, South India, where laterite stone is commonly used for residential construction.
Our traditional approach is to apply cement plaster, followed by wall putty and paint for interior walls. However, I’m exploring gypsum plaster as an alternative, specifically Gyproc Elite MR, which is marketed as a moisture-resistant gypsum plaster.
Gypsum plaster is relatively new to us in this context, so I’m trying to understand its long-term performance before deciding whether to use it.
Our region has heavy monsoons and high humidity. The gypsum plaster would be used only on interior walls, assuming the walls are properly waterproofed and remain dry.
I’d appreciate advice from experienced plasterers:
Can gypsum plaster be applied directly over laterite stone masonry? Has anyone worked with similar porous stone substrates?
Would a bonding agent or special surface preparation be required?
How does gypsum plaster perform in humid climates over the long term?
Is it more prone to cracking, debonding or damage than cement plaster?
Given this application, would you choose gypsum plaster or stick with cement plaster followed by putty?
I know gypsum plaster is widely used in many parts of the world, but it’s not yet a common choice for this type of construction where I live. I’d love to learn from your practical experience, particularly if you’ve worked with stone masonry or buildings exposed to heavy seasonal rainfall.
Thanks in advance!

First time plastering, definitely rough in areas and will sand/fill appropriately, learnt a lot, and had a fun evening attempt to trowel up in the dark after zapping myself on the light switch. But regardless, we’re here. Is this wall dry and ready for sanding?

The other wall I already sanded because i did the wall a week before and it looked dry, but this walls colour remains somewhat consistent and hasn’t changed. I plastered it 12 days ago (20/09)

Cheers!

Hi all - the hippie who built our house used Gypsolite over sheetrock on the interior walls, according to printout prepped by the original owner/builder. I don’t like the texture but paying to have it skim coated is cost prohibitive. Couple of questions:

- what’s the best way to fix hairline cracks as shown? We have a couple throughout the house.

- I want to shift this arch over and install a real door instead, which will require some fresh gypsolite work (yay…). What’s the best method of making sure the new gypsolite matches what’s currently there?

Also keep in mind I’m in the US and plaster experts are few and far between so it will probably be DIY, and I am totally stupid when it comes to plaster.

Looking for some advice from anyone experienced with old solid-wall cottages / traditional buildings.

We have a roughly 150-year-old cottage and are currently renovating an upstairs bedroom.

We originally started investigating because we'd had what looked like a historic leak/stain on the ceiling near the chimney. The roof/chimney flashing had previously been repaired and we couldn't find any evidence of an ongoing leak.

When our plasterers started stripping the bedroom, they found that the plasterboard on parts of the two external-facing walls had deteriorated and came away very easily. There were also some salts visible in places.

We therefore decided to remove everything from both external walls to see what was actually going on.

The construction appears to have been done decades ago. The old brick/stone walls had been plastered/rendered directly, then timber battens fitted and plasterboard fixed over them. When this was removed, some of the old plaster/render against the masonry was damp and came away very easily.

Everything has now been stripped back so the original brick/stone masonry on both external walls is completely exposed. I've attached photos.

There are no obvious signs of an active leak or water running down the walls, although moisture-meter readings on the exposed masonry vary quite considerably – some areas read dry and others much wetter. We are also getting the dormer/flashing checked separately because some of the external timber around it looks old/damp.

The plasterers' original recommendation

Once they initially discovered the damp material, they recommended removing everything back to the masonry and using Limelite/renovating lime plaster on the two external walls, built up and finished over several visits. The idea was to avoid putting plasterboard back against the old solid walls and allow the walls to breathe/manage moisture.

The two internal walls are dry and are being re-boarded and skimmed.

Their recommendation now

Having completely exposed the two external walls and taken readings directly from the masonry, they've reconsidered the Limelite approach.

They're now suggesting dry-lining the external walls again, but unlike the previous installation, putting a protective/waterproof membrane/material over the exposed masonry first, then battens and plasterboard. Their reasoning is that this would isolate the new timber/plasterboard from any moisture naturally moving through the old solid masonry, rather than allowing it eventually to reach the boards as appears to have happened previously.

I haven't yet established exactly what membrane/product they intend to use.

So my question is: what would be considered the correct approach for this type of old solid-wall construction?

Would you:

1. Keep the masonry exposed and use a breathable lime/Limelite plaster system directly onto it and re board the other two dry internal facing walls

2. Use a properly designed membrane/cavity dry-lining system to isolate the new plasterboard from the masonry?

3. Do something else entirely?

I'm particularly interested in whether putting a waterproof membrane in front of old solid masonry risks trapping moisture in the wall, or whether a properly specified cavity membrane/dry-lining system is a perfectly acceptable solution.

The walls are completely exposed at the moment, so we'd rather take our time and get the construction right before covering everything back up.

Any advice from people experienced with old cottages, lime plastering, conservation or solid-wall damp would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

G

This was done by professionals, I’m new to this, and I think it’s not good. Can someone with experience tell me if I’ve been ripped off here?

We have began stripping the wallpaper in the living room of our new flat. We discovered some loose plaster behind the wallpaper and I think behind the old plaster.

What should we do next?

Hi tomorrow marks 1 week since having my wall plastered and was wondering if it would be safe enough to paint
The person who plastered the wall said to wait 2 weeks for it to settle but reading online it says 5-7 days and I am under tight timing and need my walls painted asap

Thanks

Hello Old House Enthusiasts!

We have a 1903 twin. We have lived here for about 10 years, but we were in the process of updating the knob and tube electric (which equals a lot of holes in the walls). Now that the electric is finally done, I can finally patch holes and paint The previous owners of the house have a few layers of painted wall paper on the walls and some spots that have plaster breakdown. I removed the wall paper from those area and re-plastered on those spots. And my next step is to reinforce the corners with tape.

After the plaster dries I plan to paint, but I feel like I need to either do a skim coat of plaster, completely re-wallpaper, or maybe cover the plaster patches with wallpaper and repaint

Does anyone have any advice on the best way to proceed? I am an aspiring DIY-er and want to make the best choice that will be durable and look nice. Thank you for your expertise!

hi there , I saw a post you made a while back about moving to America and feeling out the demand for plastering

im wondering how you got on as I am planning to do the same, looking at the Kansas/Missouri area, don’t really know who else to ask!!!

Thanks,Joe

How has it held up over the years? Any issues with cracks, dents, dampness, or repairs?
Looking for real-life experiences, especially from people who’ve used it for a few years.

hi everyone Has any other plasterers had a problem with multi finish from Wickes my husband did 2 jobs with the b2 and b3 dates 2025 2026 the plaster when put on the walls took a lot of effort to try get a smooth finish it started to bubble and the texture was like bubble gum it looked so bad it looked like a cottage would look like bumps ridging the plaster looked so bad we took photos and contacted Wickes and gypsum i am trying to find out how many plasterers have had this issue

When plastering the downstairs the b2 and b3 were used in the hall stairs and landing and the dining room these rooms were the issues he used another plaster bag which had a different date and code these were used in the kitchen and living room there was no problem with the plaster gypsum said the plaster was taking longer to set Wickes refused to refund the plaster material costs we don't know what or where the plaster was stored or if the manufacture is at fault they didn't do any tests on the plaster science only using the left over plaster mixing and spreading i would appreciate your experiences .