1880 Plaster Problems

[Jmt27]

Hello Everyone!,

We've just moved into our house which was built in 1880 and still has the original plaster throughout. We are having real problems everytime we try to drill and plug the walls to fix curtain rails, cupboards etc. As soon as I put the plug in and start to tighten the screw the plaster starts to crumble. Is there any special technique or tools we can use to get around this problem without having to replaster the walls?

Many thanks in anticipation of your advice!

 

[Moo]

There was a very interesting thread not so long ago about the problem of hanging a heavy mirror. It might be worth your while to do a bit of scrolling down (or try a Search?) to find it.

 

[chuckey]

You don't say if they are external (plaster on brick) or internal (plaster on laths) walls. For the former you need to drill right through the plaster into the brick ( allow 2" for the plaster thickness). For lath and plaster walls, if you don't know there are loads of horizontal thin(1/4"thick) pieces of narrow wood nailed to the vertical studs onto which the plaster was stuck. With age the plaster looses its grip and can come off. Again use long fixings in the hope you hit a lath behind the plaster or even better use a detector and screw into a vertical stud. If you need to fix something, I can reccommend, Screwfix's toggle bolts, these pass through a 1/2" hole then two plastic ties are pulled tight to pull the toggle against the back of the plasterwork. The only downside is that they need a 5 or 6mm bolt to fix them, a bit much for a calendar.
Frank

 

[Penners]

What's behind the plaster? Is it masonry, or is there a void?

If it's masonry, you may find it easier to abandon modern wall plugs in favour of a plug of wood.

Drill an oversize hole - maybe 1/2-inch diameter - of generous depth. Now cut a plug of softwood a bit longer than the depth of the hole and a little wider than its diameter. Make sure the grain of the wood runs along the plug, not across it. If the plug is obviously much too big, then whittle it a bit with a Stanley knife (if the wood turns pink, you've whittled your finger, too). The idea is to make the plug a very tight fit in the hole.

Now hammer the plug into the hole. When you think you've hit bottom, cut off any surplus that's still proud of the wall.

If the plug slips in easily, it's too small. If it won't go in at all, it's too big.

This technique takes a little practice, and you usually have to do a bit of filling around your fixing, but it makes for a sound wall-mounting.

If your plaster is on laths, with a void behind, then you may find it easier to mount a board on the wall. Try to find the positions of the studs* that the laths are nailed to, and screw through the board into the those studs, for a firm fixing. Then fit your curtain rail mountings to the board.

* A stud detector will cost you about a tenner from a DIY store. They're a help, but they're not a perfect science by any means. You may have to end up drilling a horizontal line of small holes in order to find the studs. Just make sure you do this in a position where your holes will be covered by the board.

 

[Penners]

Sorry, Frank - I've duplicated a lot of what you said. I was typing while you were posting!

 

[Penners]

JMT27 - I'm sure Frank won't mind if I add a word of caution about toggle bolts which anchor on to the back of the lath & plaster. These would almost certainly not be suitable for heavy curtains or wall cupboards. They would probably just break through the laths or pull the laths off the studs.

If you've got studwork and lath/plaster, you definitely need to be anchoring on to the studs for heavy stuff.

 

[Jmt27]

Thank you all very much for your advice! As we've just moved in we're slowly going through each room decorating so at the moment I've got all the walls to deal with at some point so there will be both masonry and lath to get to grips with. I really appreciate your help and will no doubt have another question I'll need help with shortly. I'll keep you posted on how I get on.

Many thanks

Jonathan