Do what i did and teach yourself if you dot and dab its easy.[/QUOTE]

sounds easy this dot and dab . just chuck the boards on wall then skim
lots of so called plasterers are doing it around york ,:rolleyes:

Oi, I dab houses all day long :D

Going by very, very limited knowledge, you can either use watered down paint or a really cheap emulsion that is so thin you wouldn't need to water it down (we sell one that fits the bill).

I do believe you could also use a PVA/water mix (think it's 5 or 4 parts water to one part PVA). Depending upon how much glue you'd need it can be fairly cheap as far as I know. I don't know about this, but I have been led to believe you can use size to do the same (don't know of the mix for this). I'm not sure if either option is better/worse or the same as using watered down emulsion, a guru would soon put me right. :thumb:

At work we sell a dedicated new plaster sealer, experts may be able to correct me but I am of the mind that this would be the most expensive way to achieve a sound base.

Thanks Lisa, i`ll make note of the above.

I can`t say that i`m impressed at what ive just found after spending £530 to get this room plastered, along one of the walls at the bottom their is a dip in the wall where if you put skirting board on you would have a big gap between the wall and the skirting board. I only spotted it after the plaster had started to dry out.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...a/P1010189.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...a/P1010188.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...a/P1010193.jpg

But you asked him to skim over the original work so the big gap isn't exactly his fault as that wasn't done by him!

I didn`t ask him to skim over the original work, i asked for his advice on what was the best way forward to achieve clean straight lines around the room to put skirting board on and to get a blemish free finish to paint over.

I called him out to give us a quote and whilst he was here i told him what i wanted to achieve. I pointed out to him that my end goal was to get clean straight lines on the walls so that the skirting board would go on straight and flush and to get a blemish free flat finish so that the walls could be painted.

When he came out to give me the quote the walls were stripped of wallpaper so he could see the plaster in its bare state, his advice to me was to knock the top half of the plaster off and to leave the grey plaster on at the bottom. (See the pics on the first page)

He`s the expert, he knew what i wanted and i followed his advice. I could of easily knocked off more plaster if required as i had virtually gutted three quarters of the room of plaster but that wasn`t his advice, he said he could work with the grey plaster at the bottom.

Ive paid £530 for a relatively small room to be rendered and skimmed, from what people have been saying on this thread ive been charged too much anyway but i didn`t mind because i thought i would be left with a room that had straight lines to put skirting board on and a smooth finish to paint.

Plastering is an art to do right and there is a hell of a lot of bad ones out there, get him back as it would be nothing to fix. If he has any pride in his work (pmsl) he will come and sort it out for you :) I see lots of plasterers come and work for the housing company I contract to and not many of them are any good but they think they are great :D If you have found out the skirting line is wrong you don't want to go checking any more of the room as it may upset you :)

Never, on any account, should you size a wall with a PVA mix prior to painting.
You need the first coat to soak right in ready for the next 2 coats of slightly thinned emulsion (depending on which brand you use it may not need to be thinned at all).

I only use quality emulsion - even for the 'mist' coat and wouldn't even think about putting Wilko's/ B&Q own brand on anything - not even a dog kennel. :)

fix your skirting to the highspots on wall, then get the man back to pva and skim the low area , But as Steve says when a plasterer prices to skim a room , he skims over the old walls , but hey o , good luck.

Maybe your skirting board is warped?

I spoke to the plasterer earlier making it clear i wasn`t happy, he said he couldn`t build up the wall with plaster because you can only put plaster on to a certain mm thickness.

He wasn`t going to do a thing until i suggested that i`ll get independent advice and bill him for the repair work, his suggestion after i`m not happy about either.

He said to put the skirting board on of which it will leave a big gap to the wall and when ive done that he`ll come round and take a look, in the area where the dip in the wall is you won`t be able to bond the skirting board to the wall because of the big gap and it can`t be nailed as their are rediator pipes behind.

Surely it has to be sorted first before the skirting board goes on as it defeats the object to do it after ?

fix the skirting to the high spots, get the plasterer back to pva and skim the low spots :confused:

There's bugger all wrong with B&Q paint thank you very much, most my house is done in it with no adverse effects. Just "paint" snobbery in my eyes :nono:

Rob, all he has to do is cover the bad area with bonding then skim as nessecary, its not a hard or a long job and as for building the wall out why didn't he do it when he did the tops :D

He told me that the cement render wouldn`t stick to the grey plaster that he said to leave on so he couldn`t build it up that way, i understand that part. He then said that you can`t build up the bad area with plaster to make it level because you can only put a certain thickness of plaster on, he said you can only use a couple of millimeters thickness.

I told him at the start that i'll knock off whatever plaster is required to get the perfect finish.

Like bollocks is it paint snobbery :lol1:

If I turned up to a customers brandishing a pot of B&Q I'd be turned away!

No adverse effects?
Give it a couple of years - when you're re-doing yours my jobs will still have another couple years left in them...
:)

There is a few undercoat plasters than could be used in this area also that thickness could of been done in board finish as he could of built it out when he skimmed the ceiling or other walls then it could of been a few extra mm to go on with the proper finish coat ;)

YOU are the numptie you numptie. The op asked for the cost to skim/rectify his room, your answer was ' £200'

He never asked the cost to skim/rectify per WALL.

In my experience the B&Q stuff has done a better job in my house than the dulux, crown etc 'branded' paints. For customers maybe they do wanna see the branded stuff floating around to justify the cost but I can say the B&Q stuff has faired brilliantly for the 5 years I've owned my home. I don't see the point in paying more for the same quality hence why I prefer the B&Q stuff :)