i need advice on filling holes in walls and what to use!?

Question

i took a handrail off the wall from the previous tennants in my house and have since started stripping wallpaper only to find chunk of wall falling away with matchstix and wall plugs aplenty.the holes are now roughly three inch diameter and at the deepest point probly about the same...how do i go about filling them?any products you can recommend would be helpful...the plaster seems so crumbly and i can see bits that have been filled before and chunks of that is falling away with the wall in some places.PLEASE HELP...IT FEELS LIKE MY HOUSE IS FALLING APART.(THE HANDRAIL ISNT THE ONLY PLACE THE WALLS ARE LIKE THIS ..JUST THE WORST OF IT)

Answer 1

are you shure that you might have WHITE ANTS, ring your billder straght away , cherylc

Answer 2

Hi First don't despare it ain't that bad

I have an older property which has the similar plaster problems what I use is "Patching Plaster Bluehawk make one but so do many others including your own brand stuff at B&Q and similar DIY stores
You also need to get a small bottle or tin of PVA adhesive like the wood glue

Now read the plater packet and add the plaster to the water Not the other way only before you add the water add about a teea spoonfull of PVA to about a coffee mug of water and stire it having dry brushed the whole you wish to fill paint the inside of the hole with the PVA and water mix and do this to any of the other holes this seals and creates a bond for the plaster
Next it's time for the plaster only make a small amount at first till you get used to quantities again a good start is a coffee cup or even 2 again with a tea spoon of PVA in the water the powder should be stried into the water untill you get a very thick paste somthing like a still cake mix so that the plaster can be pulled up into points without collapsing
Don't try to fill the holes in one go it will just sag so just poke it in untill it is about 1/2" from the surface do this on all the holes
Depending how wide your holes are you can use anything with a stright edge ie a plastic rule a wide scraper or even a piece of wood with a stright edge now place enogh plaster in the hole to just over the top now with the stright edge held firmly on each side of the hole with a side to side motion move the stright edge up from just below the hole to just above carefully remone the surplus and if you didn't fill it in one go add plaster and do the same again don't worry about the edge too much as this can be smoothed out using sand paper or even a hand sander
When you are happy with your master piece and all holes are finsihed just mix another little bit of PVA in water just enogh to paint over the patches this will give them a seal for whatever you wish to do paint or paper ( do wait a day or so to let the plaster dry out before final sealing

Answer 3

I'm rather saddened that in 2007 plaster still exists, but certainly I understand that it does in older dwellings.
You don't mention in your report of holes and crumbling, if there is LATH behind the plaster, or mesh to allow the plaster to adhere to any wall framing structure behind the plaster.
In re-doing plaster however, you may have an easier time than you might with holes in drywall. I suggest you first determine what HELD the plaster in the first place, and the condition of it. If it's still intact, then re-plastering (patching) might not be such a huge task.
I also understand budget constraints, or I'd be suggesting, Tear it all out and use another form of wall cover material.

Steven Wolf

In any case you may have a daunting task ahead, but if in fact this is plaster and can be patched, you can pace the work, keep your efforts in a manageable equation, and work your way through the house, one area at a time. Sadly too, I see houses where plaster has cracked and rather than pull out the degraded material, people choose to just fill and cover the cracks, never truly solving the larger problem.

Answer 4

It isn't as bad as it looks. You have old plaster lathe boards for wallboards, and they're not the best. My suggestion is to do one of two things.

One - tear down the existing wall by cutting it out near the beams. remove the wallboards until they are not crumbling and replace with drywall.

Two- get some drywall mix from a hardware store, and trowel it on the wall if it's strong enough to support it. Spread some screen or paper across the holes-trowel on drywall mix and use a hand held drywell sanding screen to make it flat.

It looks bad, but not a really difficult fix.

Jim

Answer 5

You have some good answers above- Either patching with Sheetrock ( wallboard) or firming up the lath ( either wood or metal ) and patching the plaster. Both are good options and they depend on how strong the lath is under the plaster.

One question I still have is the hand rail. I think the hand rail probably loosed the plaster in the first place. It was probably installed without any nailing behind it. If you plan on reinstalling the hand rail, you will want to put in some blocking behind in the wall when you open it up.

Good Luck

Answer 6

First, you need to stabilize the plaster. Get some PVA adhesive, mix 2 water to one part of PVA, either brush or spray (small hand spray, but mix well & clean out immediatly.
Then you can fill the holes with "Polyfilla", about 1/2 inch depth at a time. One of my walls had holes all over, so I ran a flat sander over the wall,then 'smeared' polyfilla over, with a plasterers float, then sanded again.....perfection

Answer 7

Hi Nerak,

This is a fairly widespread problem all over the world.

Don't worry! It not as bad as it looks...Honest!

If you live in the UK a product such as 'Polyfiller' is the answer, In Spain 'Aguaplast', in the USA I can't remember the product name, but it was possible to buy from Ernst and other retailers a large (5 gallon) tub of pre-mixed filler, which is cheap and easy to apply.

Large (i.e. deep) holes should be filled in stages, smaller holes can be easily filled by skimming over the poor surface. Scratch the surface with the edge of your filling trowel or spatula and just go carefully...and you should have few problems.

Good luck,
BobSpain

Answer 8

I would get some joint compound,small holes just push it in and smooth with a putty knife,big holes stuff the hole with some kind of filler, paper, insulation,card board. Then fill use joint tape and smooth with a wide dry wall knife.Large holes may needed to be done twice sand between coats

Answer 9

Paper over it and sell up!
Seriously though it sounds like this wall needs reconstructing.