Plastering OLD Bathroom Wall - needs to be breathable?

[Nathan Ifans]

I am doing some work on my bathroom, old house, thick stone walls in the UK. I am removing tiles on two walls. I will be applying new tiles to one wall (the one over the shower/bath). The other wall I will be plastering the top half, and finishing the bottom half in tongue and groove cladding, probably MDF. The wall is not an exterior wall.

My question is regarding the plastered wall, I would normally hire a plaster but am going to tackle this myself as it is a small area of 2 meters wide and 1 meter tall. Am I correct in thinking that I should use lime plaster to keep the breathability of the wall? Or should I avoid breathability due to the wall being previously tiled (not breathable), to avoid bathroom moisture/condensation seeping in to the wall?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[roy c]

I you are going to tile over your plastering then there should be no problem within your wall. I would use a 4-5 sand and cement with 1 lime, dub the wall out first with a scratch coat, You could wet your wall then throw the first coat on the wall to fill a few of the "dips out and leave it for a while and rule it off and give it a scratch.(Wavey lines), Then leave it over night the put another coat on it and rule it off again to the thickness you need for the tiling. You may need another coat if you cant get it flat enough for your tiling if so then you can put a light wavey scratch on it and tile it when it's dried out.. Don't try to bring it all out in one go! Patience is the way to go...Good Luck...

 

[Nathan Ifans]

I will not be tiling one of the walls, just plastering, then painting