Old wall

rosebill

Good Evening
Can someone please help. My husband and I have to dry line our old house (built 1940's) and the external walls are not solid block or brick. They seem to be made up of stones/sand/shale and plastered over. We have been advised to dryline. Can someone please help by advising us how we can do this properly. We must do it ourselves as money is very tight. :eek:, and we are complete novices at D.I.Y, and nearly as old as our house.
Thank you so much in advance

ART6

This is how I've done it in the past (the easy way!)

To do it you will need to buy some lining film. B&Q supply rolls of membrane material in HDPE (high density polyethylene). Comes in rolls that are 4 metres wide and (from memory) about 12 metres long, but alternatively and for ease of handling you could use decorators polythene sheeting. Hang that on the walls using duct tape or similar to hold it in place temporarily and make sure it covers the whole wall. If you have to join it anywhere, again use duct tape to seal the joint. Then fix wooden 2 x 1 sawn battens vertically to the walls using two inch masonery nails (or frame anchors if the walls are not too sound). If you are going to line using plasterboard, fix the battens at 2 ft centres and then nail the plasterboards to the battens using galvanized plasterboard nails. When finished, where the edges of the plasterboard meet, the boards will probably be recessed slightly. Cover the joints with paper scrim tape glued in place with something like wallpaper paste, then skim plaster over it to fill the recesses. You will need a steel platerers float to skim, and if you're not skilled enough to get a good finish, be prepared to sand the plaster down with sandpaper on a sanding block when it's dried off and set hard.

If you buy standard plasterboard it will be brown on one side and white on the other. The white side should be on the room side.

If the wall isn't too sound and you need frame anchors, these are available from most DIY stores. They are a Phillips head screw with a plastic wall plug on the end. You fit them by drilling through the battens and into the wall using a masonery drill, and then you simply hammer the frame anchors through the battens and into the walls. You would need something like 3 inch (75 mm) anchors.

You also need to think about what to do where the lining reaches the floor and ceiling. Ideally it should extend down beneath the floor to the damp proof membrane beneath, but if the floors are concrete then that's not possible. The best you can do then is fix more battens to the walls horizontally along the floor so as to trap the liner tight against the floors.
Same thing at the ceilings.

As you fix the plasterboard to the battens, make a pencil mark on the bottom of each sheet to show where the battens are, so that when you come to fit scirting boards you know where the battens are to nail the boards to.

If you have electrical sockets in the existing walls, you will need to move them out by about 1 1/2 inches to flush them with the plasterboards. If they are flush fitting, there will be galvanized metal boxes fixed into wall recesses behind the face plates. Those boxes will need to be released and moved out, with the space left behind them filled with plaster or mortar.

All this sounds complicated, but it's actually quite easy to do given a hammer, some nails and duct tape, lining film and a hand drill.:)

blackbox

Good instructions Art6, but would you not recommend including some insulation?

ART6

blackbox wrote: »

Good instructions Art6, but would you not recommend including some insulation?

If the walls are solid (ie without cavities) I wouldn't think insulation would help much. However, I suppose some expanded polystryene sheets between the battens would certainly help that. Good point!

rosebill

Thank you very much for your help, but I'm now so confused. In a lot of articles I've read on drylining walls, you must put vents in the wall to allow air to circulate around back of plastic liner, I'm not sure if we should do this with our walls and if so, is it just normal vents, and how many and will putting these in then damage the plastic lining. I really hate to ask this but we have also being told to raise the levels of our internal floors above the external ground as we are getting damage to walls from outside rains etc. Is this more or less done the same as the walls and again how do we vent the floor to allow for air circulation. The floors are all concrete and probably have no dpc. Maybe someone could recommend a good DIY book with detail explainations. Many thanks again

jack of all

I really don't think this is a job for a novice- badly installed/ uninformed DIY drylining can do a lot more harm than good. For example- the polythene sheet referred to is a vapour check and must be installed on the warm side of the insulation to prevent interstitial condensation in the dry lining build-up (this in turn will affect thermal performance, may cause mildew and seriously affect the fabric of your lining and walls). Drylining is not suitable for walls which are permanently damp- the causes of this must be remedied before lining. Also it is an absolute must to include a reasonable level of insulation if drylining. Most builders would now opt for a thermal wallboard (plasterboard with insulation bonded to rear face) when drylining, it gives a superior thermal performance and is less labour intensive. It's a longshot but I know but the government plan to introduce some grant assistance scheme to help people upgrade the insulation of their homes, supposed to be giving details very soon (according to Willy o'Dea on Pat Kenny's show today); maybe it's worth seeing if you could avail of grant assistance and retain a builder to do this job?

harly1516

Have to agree with Jack of all trades not a diy job, decorators polythene, no way, 2 foot centers on the 2 by 1 no way paste to hold on the scrim now come on if you want it done right speek to a trades man if not your wasting cash and making a damp room worse

blackbox

harly1516 wrote: »

Have to agree with Jack of all trades not a diy job, decorators polythene, no way, 2 foot centers on the 2 by 1 no way paste to hold on the scrim now come on if you want it done right speek to a trades man if not your wasting cash and making a damp room worse

Harly, you may be right, but you're not being very helpful...

You could address this by answering the following:

1. What would you use instead of polythene, and why?
2. What distance would you recommend between the battens?
3. What adhesive would you use to hold the joint tape?

jack of all

Blackbox: what's the use in Harly giving a detailed spec and instructions for this job if it's beyond the capabilities of a novice DIYer? Drylining is not a DIY job- insulating your loft, fitting a draught excluder is. BTW scrim tapes for use with drylining don't need adhesive- they are generally of the self adhesive kind and simply "tack" on, ready for joint filling.

rosebill

Thank you for your advice, while I appreciate this is probably a job for the professionals, there is not choice in the matter but to do it ourselves. As I said thanks you for your advice anyway.

jack of all

Saw some details re: insulation scheme on news tonight, you should at least investigate this option before dismissing it out of hand.

rosebill

Saw articles re proposed grants for insulation. Feel this will work on the same principle as getting anything done on your insurance, twice the price as cash, so end up paying same amount in the end, grant is claimed and others end up with twice the price. So have started on house renovations and want to tear my hair out already, but will keep learning and keep going.

Have already being done on materials down here, sorry to say I am going north for rest of materials,

Why support local when they continue to rip us off:mad: