Plasterboard, taping and jointing - a task for the professionals or something worth learning?

anronmor

hi folks,

doing a home office fit out the DIY way and getting big quotes for plastering. Is it worth considering doing the plasterboarding, taping and jointing myself or is that a job best left to the experts?

Thanks

Pinoy adventure

Do it yourself.

measure twice and cut once.

it’s fairly easy,maybe get sumbody too help if doing ceiling

sully123

It will take a while to get the hang of. Lots of sanding required. Ready mix buckets are great. Handy skill to be reasonably good at.

Deregos.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058232202/plasterboard-taping-and-jointing-a-task-for-the-professionals-or-something-worth-learning

Definitely give it a go yourself, you might need another pair of hands if lifting the 8 x 4 sheets into position but the taping and filling you can definitely DIY.

This crowd have a video channel that shows how to do all aspects of plasterboarding, a lot of it is sales but if you skip the first few minutes of each video they're very informative.

https://youtu.be/HyODAfDEuZo

Crocodile Booze

Give it a go. Good drill driver for drywall screws is a must and make sure the screw heads are flat and flush with surface. Also a good wide filling tool.

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118608079#Comment_118608079

Yes, a good quality one too - the more spring in the blade the better.

I learned taping, jointing and plastering over the lock-down - I have now plastered 5 walls and while the quality isn't pro-levels, it's nothing that can't be improved up to what a matt paint can't hide. I just wouldn't be going for a gloss afterwards anyway!!

TimHorton

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118609244#Comment_118609244

Yes, A Matt Finish hides a multitude of DIY Sins.

seamus

Yeah, I had to stick up a partition wall over a weekend, and I had someone knowledgeable talk me though hanging the first board of plaster, but it was straightforward enough. Definitely not confident enough to do a full skim coat or to hang it in a high-traffic area, but now I look at it and you'd never know where it is except for a couple of scratches in the stipple ceiling that I need to paint.

Coddle4dinner

I skimcoated a room before with no experience.

I wouldn't say it was easy but it turned out well.

I did one wall at a time each evening after work so I wasn't under too much pressure to get loads done.

Getting the muck onto the trowel is a skill in its self and keeping grit out of the mix is painful......

Once it was dry I fixed up any trowel marks with easy fill and flattened it .

I wouldnt be rushing back to it again but I would buy a speed skim ,

anronmor

Thanks all, will have a go and report back in a month or two!

10-10-20

In a practice-what-you-preach moment, had a plastering job left where I needed to skim a wall of my porch after installing some insulated plasterboard. I pulled out a bag of skimcoat which was open but still in-date (March 2022) and mixed up a batch with a paddle mixer. Seemed fine. I set myself up with a set of steps, then came back and gave the batch another mix and added a splash - maybe 30ml - of water. I loaded up the first trowel-full off the hawk and applied it - top left corner - and dragged it right. It seemed thick so I went over it with the trowel to even it out and bang - just like that the trowel stuck into the fresh plaster and I had to tweek it sideways to pull it away.

Fearing the worst, I turned to the bucket to see what was going on but I couldn't even use my bucket-trowel to mix the plaster. By the time I had got it outside it had set solid in the bottom of the bucket. That was effectively 5 or 6 mins after mixing it up. Within the next 4 minutes, the plaster on the wall was very firmly fixed and I ended up having to chisel it off. It fairly well damaged the top paper coat on the plasterboard.

Anyway, I went off and got fresh skimcoat which had a date of July 2022 and finished off the job last night. Moral of the story is... always use fresh skimcoat.

Saladin Ane

The date may be March 2022 but if the bag had breen open for a couple of months, that would have been the problem.Ireland being so humid etc. In case anyone reading this has a problem with old skimcoat, add a heaped soupspoon of Cream Of Tartar to the water and stir before emptying in the bag and mixing. But if there are lumps in the bag, chuck it.

Saladin Ane