Plasterers...Please answer this question about PVA ing walls

lancslass2008

Hi all.

Hoping someone can give me a definitive answer here.

We are renovating an old Terraced House. It was necesary to completely strip every inch of plaster off every wall and to take down every ceiling. All the plaster was shot and had turned to dust and to be honest it practically fell off. So... we now have a Plasterer who comes VERY much recommended. So recommended that he has work for the next 6 months. So recommended that he has double booked us. He has agreed to carry on with our Job by drylining & skimming every wall & ceiling in the House but he told us: "Can you help me out? Can you do me a favour. I will order all the stuff you need. Can you go and pay for it and wait for the Delivery on Friday and unload it yourself. Then put me 10 plaster boards in every room and a couple of bags of adhesive. That'll save me wasting a day taking deliveries and putting things in place". Now considering he is charging me a day rate I am more than happy to do this. Therefore, my OH & I have taken Thursday & Friday off work to carry this out. So... Onto the real topic... When we were paying for the stuff at Travis Perkins earlier, I noticed that on the invoice was some PVA. Now, here's where I need your advice peeps...

1. I presume that the PVA is for priming the walls so the plasterboard adhesive bonds better/properly?? Am I right???

2. If so, considering we have taken 2 days off work maybe we can save some time (and labour cost from the plasterer) by PVA ing the walls ourselves. What is the process? What do we do? I presume you buy some PVA from TP or B&Q and mix it with water and paint it on every wall. What is the mixture (how many parts Water to PVA)? How do you get it on to the wall? With a soft sweeping brush? Wallpaper paste brush? We understand off a friend that there may be no need to completely PVA every wall because the plasterer may only PVA where he is going to stick a blob of Board adhesive. However, we have nothing to lose. PVA is cheap, we have time on our hands and it will mean the plasterer won't have to do any PVA ing at all.

Any help? Tips? Advice?

Thanks all

ValHaller

lancslass2008 wrote: »

....
Any help? Tips? Advice?

PVA is where the artistic temperament of the plasterer is expressed. PVAing is done in the moment according to how the plasterer feels his composition is playing out.

drummer_666

from my (very limited) experience you put a mix of pva and water onto the walls and wait for it to go tacky and then put on the first coat of plaster

A.Penny.Saved

I'm about to attempt some plastering myself......after a few partially successful attempts, I now realise after doing some more reading that the problem I had with it all going off far too quickly and me having to work far faster than I like, was the suction wasn't fully taken care of even though I did use several coats of PVA.

The first coat is meant to be water/PVA to soak into the wall and then I understand that a pure PVA coat is needed. That is what I intend trying on my next attempt. I will try a tiny bit of plaster on it to check how long it takes to go off rather than working like a blue assed fly with a plastered wall going off in the space of a couple of minutes.

If he is only drylining then PVA might not be necessary. It's mostly used to control suction from what I know, although fixing dust might also help when sticking plasterboard to the walls with dot and dab.

It might be worth asking him about it, tell him that as well as taking the delivery, to help him out (and reduce costs ) that you will do any other small jobs such as applying PVA if it helps him out. Ask him for instructions.

southcoastrgi

Just for those of us without a magnifying glass

Hi all.

Hoping someone can give me a definitive answer here.

We are renovating an old Terraced House. It was necesary to completely strip every inch of plaster off every wall and to take down every ceiling. All the plaster was shot and had turned to dust and to be honest it practically fell off. So... we now have a Plasterer who comes VERY much recommended. So recommended that he has work for the next 6 months. So recommended that he has double booked us. He has agreed to carry on with our Job by drylining & skimming every wall & ceiling in the House but he told us: "Can you help me out? Can you do me a favour. I will order all the stuff you need. Can you go and pay for it and wait for the Delivery on Friday and unload it yourself. Then put me 10 plaster boards in every room and a couple of bags of adhesive. That'll save me wasting a day taking deliveries and putting things in place". Now considering he is charging me a day rate I am more than happy to do this. Therefore, my OH & I have taken Thursday & Friday off work to carry this out. So... Onto the real topic... When we were paying for the stuff at Travis Perkins earlier, I noticed that on the invoice was some PVA. Now, here's where I need your advice peeps...

1. I presume that the PVA is for priming the walls so the plasterboard adhesive bonds better/properly?? Am I right???

2. If so, considering we have taken 2 days off work maybe we can save some time (and labour cost from the plasterer) by PVA ing the walls ourselves. What is the process? What do we do? I presume you buy some PVA from TP or B&Q and mix it with water and paint it on every wall. What is the mixture (how many parts Water to PVA)? How do you get it on to the wall? With a soft sweeping brush? Wallpaper paste brush? We understand off a friend that there may be no need to completely PVA every wall because the plasterer may only PVA where he is going to stick a blob of Board adhesive. However, we have nothing to lose. PVA is cheap, we have time on our hands and it will mean the plasterer won't have to do any PVA ing at all.

Any help? Tips? Advice?

Thanks all

wrightk

usually it is applied with a pasting brush or similar to bond the walls, particuarly if it is brick and this tends to crumble, the pva will help to bond the surface. May be worth giving your plasterer a call. its really easy to do. I cant remember the exact ratio but you could experiment with it. you need only a little pva to water. Make it up in a bucket and use a wide pasting brush to apply to the walls

Ruski

If you've a big area to do - and it sounds like you have - use a roller - you'll spend 3 minutes doing a wall rather than half an hour.

HTH

Russ

muddyl

OK as said it is to create a barrier to prevent the wall from sucki g the water out of the plaster too quickly, this would cause it to crack and bond poorly.

If its a brick wall with loose particles, get yourself a sweeping brush and give it a rub over to get most of the loose off.

Then mix one part PVA with one part water and apply liberally with a brush, wallpaper brush is ideal (a roller may be faster but will not give as good a result).
It doesn't take long to put on and dries within an hour or so(depending on how watered down). You can apply more coats if needed. (If the first coat dries very quick then you need another).

A little tip. Turn central heating off if possible well before he arrives unless a very cold day. The heat makes the plaster go off much quicker making it harder to get a good finish. If he wants it on then its easier to warm the house up than it is to cool it down if he says its too hot.

And if your wanting to save times, remove any plug and light switches you can. Much quicker than plastering around them.

lancslass2008

Thanks all. I took some advice and rang him and he said "You don't have to PVA it for us. We're only gonna wet it first", which leads me to ask why there is PVA on the invoice. Maybe they mix it in with the plaster?
Anyway, thank you to all contributors.

ValHaller

No they don't mix it with the plaster. It is as I said something they do in the moment according to how they find the wall.

tony6403

ValHaller wrote: »

PVA is where the artistic temperament of the plasterer is expressed. PVAing is done in the moment according to how the plasterer feels his composition is playing out.

Never seen this. If the walls need PVA it's done before starting the plastering. Sometimes days before as the wetness of the plaster reactivates the PVA which is water soluble.

Referring to another post above about 1:1 mix of PVA with water-the manufacturers such as bond-it and Evo Bond usually recommend dilution of 5:1.