Reboarding old house - how perfect do walls need to be????

[jmd1994]

Hi guys so im doing a renovation on an old property built in 1904, the house had a lot of issues such as damp and rot and these have been sorted,

I spent a lot of time debating how to reboard it and whether to use dot and dab or battening, but after countless advice not to use dot and dab on walls that have been damp, i have went for battening

I had someone in to patch and level off parts of the walls which had been back to brick either because of damp, or blown plaster, with sand and cement, they didnt do a brilliant job but its taken away the big step from brickwork to plaster its helped

Now im running vertical treated 2x1 battens down the walls, and fixing foil backed boards onto these, but because this house is so old the walls are just bowing and out of line all over the place, im doing my best to try and get them perfect with wedges but im struggling

Im now wondering just how perfect does it have to be???? Because IF i had just went down the patch and re-skim route, the shape of the walls would still be as they are, so surely im improving them slightly?

I just dont want to get to the point of painting and there to be shadows or visable bows in the wall, im new to renovations so maybe being a bit cautious? I dont know

What extent should i be going to on a project like this?

Aslong as once painted the walls look normal im happy.

 

[vinn]

Quite what you mean by patching out damp & blown plaster here and there I dont understand?

You dont post pics so how can we know the extent of things as they stand?
Neither have you researched your question on here - there's masses of info on exactly what you ask in the plastering & building forums.

There's so much info missing from your long post - info that helps to find the cause of your previous damp and what to do next in answer to your question.
If the cause of the damp isn't known then its almost useless advising about anything else because it all might happen again.

In brief: in the hands of a professional plasterer then completely hacking off all plaster/render back to brick and re-rendering with a sand & lime mix will give a flat plumb wall good for at least 20 years of salt free contamination.

 

[jmd1994]

Okay so the cause of the damp isnt a problem anymore, the external render was in a bad condition with cracks etc so i have renewed it, but obviously there will be residual damp in the walls for quite a while

The lime plaster on the walls is probably at least 80 years old so there were areas that had lost the key, so those areas were removed or came away during renovations, so i patched these areas in either sand and cement just to tey and create as flat a surface as possible for the lats,

What i hve basically done in most areas is fix battens to untouched old plastered walls, but the natural shape of the walls isnt plumb, they bow slightly in the middle etc, so im wondering just how perfect i need to make my battens when fixing to these walls? Just how much will skimmed plasterboards show imperfections?

 

[chappers]

really depends how out of plumb the walls are, if you can see it now, you will see it when it's boarded and plastered, if you just follow what is there

 

[cjard]

Tenner says that if you do have a visible bow or unevenness to your newly plastered walls, in 3 months you'll have moved onto bigger problems, like the toddlers playing tennis with the hamster as the ball, and you won't give a damn about the walls

 

[jmd1994]

Hahaha, the house is a renovation project, so although i wont be there in a few months, its my first project and i still want it to be a good quality for the buyers

I just dont wana plaster and paint the walls and for there to be shadows haha

 

[Ian H]

What's your technique for levelling the battens?

A string line top to bottom might make it easier/quicker to get your wedges accurate.

 

[jmd1994]

On the walls which are back to brick or very un even i am using string lines across the wall top middle and bottom and a 6ft level but still cannot get it perfect,

Other walls being battened are just old artexed walls which arent as bad but still because of the age they are slightly bowing