Also, Plaster is typically color integrated, and it is the finish product and is not painted. AFAIK there are 3 types of plaster–lime based, cement based, and paint based (Venetian).
Just checking in as another New Englander whose 3 year old addition was blueboard and skim coat, not drywall and only using joint compound on the seams.
Thanks, I’m learning a lot about construction here in the US, too.
What do you do when the wall gets damaged?
Plaster over the cracks!
Is it really that forgiving? People are talking about flat walls like it happens by magic if you use this product. I’ve thrown a lot of mud around and flat just doesn’t happen by magic. A slight bump and the whole trowel jumps.
I lived in a men’s residence once where the drunken louts were common. They thought they were clever big swinging **** and would kick a hole in the wall going down the stairwell. The lowest landing had been kicked so many times that they were knocking neat square holes in the wall by then.
Typical fix - cut the drywall back to the nearest studs, so a square hole about 16" wide and however necessary high, cut a piece of drywall to size, and nail/screw it in, plaster the perimeter. Same as mentioned for the butt ends, if you look for it with a light at an oblique angle you will see the raised edge, but generally not visible behind a coat of paint.
Cheap and quick fix, for say a 6-inch square hole - stick a longer chunk of thin plank (like the old lathe) in the hole; hold it in place with a string while you screw to ends to the existing drywall. Now you have a board across the hole to which to attach (screw) the patch square of drywall.
Nowadays builders use cordless power drills and screws instead of nails - much faster and less likely to dent and damage the drywall board. You couldn’t do that backing board board trick with nails.
One house I used to have, the owner just crumpled newspaper and stuffed it in the fist-sized hole until the stuff stopped falling down, then plastered over the hole to flat. For simple cracks or small dents, just plaster works too.
I read about one person who was touting a technique to build damage-proof drywall for some public housing. Basically, back the drywall with a sheet of plywood. this makes it take a lot more work to make a hole in the drywall - especially if you are using a fist or toe. Expensive to start with, but cheaper in the long run.
A real pro can do a good job with 1 or 2 passes with joint compound (let it dry before second pass). I found that the secret was to just do it and let it dry. A couple of quick passes with the sanding is all that is needed. Working and working to make it perfect actually makes it worse, whether with the wet plaster or the sanding. It’s amazing how much minor irregularities paint can hide.
I’m not sure if you are talking about traditional mud and drywall or plaster veneer? I’m good with traditional drywall. I can hang it, tape it, mud it and texture it. Plaster veneer is what I’m interested in. Is it worth learning? Is it forgiving? I like the idea of no sanding. I like the idea of being done in two passes. I like the idea of flat walls.
If I trowel on a patch of plaster over a dent are you going to see an edge? It looks like there are 1 and 2 coat systems? It looks like there is a knock down step when it’s almost dried where you work it again? Some installers will spray it with water for a final work over?
The building engineers had to cut a hole in the drywall in my office suite to find a leak. When they were done, the commercial painting contractor patched the drywall and then repainted. It took them a few days, letting layers dry, but when they were done, I could see no sign that a hole had been there. In short, an experienced pro can do a really good job.
Real plaster is hard, so harder to ding, but a PITA if it gets damaged or cracks. You have to either re-plaster or do some faux painting. It’s a definite drawback.
re-plaster as in do a new coat on the entire wall…
Here’s the folks who did our house: https://www.newageartisans.com/ .
Thanks Tride
My wife worked for many years for one of the world’s biggest plasterboard/dry wall manufacturers, here in the UK.
Finishing plasterboard with just taping and joint filling is now basically the default in large commercial construction projects, but in private homes, skimming with plaster is pretty much the default partly because it gives a smoother finish, but also inertia amongst smaller building companies who haven’t been retrained in modern construction techniques.
Same reason smaller UK builders still like to use timber frames rather than the much-more-sensible metal frames for stud walls.
Also same reason they still default to concrete breeze blocks when they’re building houses, instead of steel frames (that, and the fact the building regs for private homes are still stuck in the past, and it’s hard to get permission to build with steel, even though that’s the default for commercial property).
They probably think the old ways are the best ways, and often they are wrong.
Very much the same situation here in the US. Some new materials get accepted quickly, others can be problematic. I assume the size of the industry making the new products has something to do with it.
From my understanding it’s more to do with training the builders in new materials and techniques. All the major manufacturers have training programmes, which the major construction companies all use, hence commercial projects adopt new materials quickly. But small family firms just carry on doing what they’ve always done and are (sometimes decades) behind the major firms in adopting new practices. I doubt the UK is unique in this regard!
I suspected that inertia was a major factor in on both sides, both in terms of construction practices and consumer preferences.
Do consumers have much say in this though? Don’t you just trust your builder on stuff like this, and stick to choosing paint colours? My wife (who worked in marketing) did a national campaign specifically targeting consumers to get them to think about specifying specialist plasterboards (sound-resistant, thermal etc) precisely because her research showed they didn’t even ask their builders any questions about the materials or drywalling methods.
Yeah, I guess consumer choice isn’t a very big factor, since the vast majority of home buyers don’t get to decide how their walls will be finished. Even people buying brand new homes usually don’t get that option; they just choose an already built house. Only the relatively small percentage of new home buyers who work with a builder to customize their house have that opportunity.
The tapered joints (the long edges that are horizontal in your photo) end up flat. The butt joints cannot be made flat. All the tape and mud is on top of the drywall but they make a wide joint so it fairs out smoothly. Those are the wide vertical strips of compound in your top photo.