Allay my fears about fitting skirting boards!

Ben1989

Is there not a handyman company in your area? They could do that job in half a day and saves you spending money on tools and more importantly your time. Another option to consider

greensalad

Ben1989 said:

Is there not a handyman company in your area? They could do that job in half a day and saves you spending money on tools and more importantly your time. Another option to consider

Yes but I don't really trust just a handyman to do a good job, I'd rather do it myself because I know that while I might be amateur I'll probably take more time over it. I'd rather spend £99 on a tool and have that tool for jobs going forward than spend £99 and more on someone to do it for me and then have no tool in the future.

diystarter7

Ben1989 said:

Is there not a handyman company in your area? They could do that job in half a day and saves you spending money on tools and more importantly your time. Another option to consider

I would not unless they had a lot of experience of skirting boards. Handymen have their uses but not for thin IMO

benson1980

diystarter7 said:

Ben1989 said:

Is there not a handyman company in your area? They could do that job in half a day and saves you spending money on tools and more importantly your time. Another option to consider

I would not unless they had a lot of experience of skirting boards. Handymen have their uses but not for thin IMO

Also the hassle of trying to find someone decent, wondering whether they turn up, managing them whilst they do the job. Most renovation work is easily DIY-able without pre requisite knowledge and experience, if you have patience. Skirting is pretty straightforward and was one of my first DIY jobs that I tackled.

A mitre saw is also really handy to have so a decent investment as well. I've done both scribing and mitres on internal corners  with pine skirting. I didn't really notice any cracking when I did mitre cuts but tend to do scribing now as I find it a little bit easier (now that I have practised it).

Bendy_House

If you do leave an intentional gap - quite possible a good move, but I doubt I would as the floor would surely have stabilised by now and be unlikely to move significantly - then I'd recommend sealing it off at some point using, say, cheap frame sealant - something with flex. That floor-skirting gap is the worst culprit for draughts.

greensalad

Thought I would come back and update since we're nearly done.

Firstly the mitre saw is amazing! So useful. We started by chopping up all the boards into lengths suitable with a 10cm overage on each board to give us plenty to do any angled cuts. I used Opticutter to put in all the measurements and then bought the right amount of boards based off that. So much less wastage than if we'd just ordered a bunch of boards and cut each length as we were going. We were able to get 90% yield off the 5 boards I bought.

However I also bought one extra short board and I'm glad we did... we cocked up three boards so far! We've been able to use those incorrect boards for cutting the smaller mistakes again and then the largest mistake (1.7m!) out of the spare board.

Second point regarding the internal/external mitres for corners. I am SO GLAD we took the time to watch literally one Youtube video and learn to scribe the ends. It is SO MUCH EASIER than doing mitres. Mitres feel like they should be easy because it's just one cut on the saw, but the problem is not with making the cut but a) making the cut at the right measurement and b) having an actual correct corner so that the mitre goes together neatly. We have discovered on our external mitres that a lot of the corners aren't square, or the floor is uneven, or various other things and there is NOTHING we can do about it. The mitres on these corners don't look great at all. We will have to do some sanding and filling to get them sharper. I am SO glad we only have this issue on some external mitres (there are 9 external corners). The scribing is really really not hard (my OH has become a dabhand at it) and it gives you infinitely more wiggle room. 

I will update once we're completely done!

MoreProbs

If you ensure the ext mitres are actually bonded together well so won't move/open up, then a smear of 2-pack filler should sort out the aesthetics. 

Wrap 120-180 grit over a slim sanding block, and use each face of the skirting as your guide. Once you've levelled the filler off to match both faces, you should have a visually perfect external corner - albeit a tad too sharp :-)

greensalad

MoreProbs said:

If you ensure the ext mitres are actually bonded together well so won't move/open up, then a smear of 2-pack filler should sort out the aesthetics. 

Wrap 120-180 grit over a slim sanding block, and use each face of the skirting as your guide. Once you've levelled the filler off to match both faces, you should have a visually perfect external corner - albeit a tad too sharp :-)

The issue we seemed to have was that the walls were absolutely not square on the external corners. We used a template piece I cut to essentially sandwich the mitres together to get an idea of how much filler would be needed. In some cases we were looking at nearly 5mm gap between wall and skirting board if we wanted it to match the mitre. 

In the end we've been able to trim up the externals to make them look good enough