How to plaster a brick wall

Capital repairs of the apartment or finishing a new home rarely do without a wall alignment procedure. Modern construction uses a variety of materials, and brick walls and partitions are quite common, although less common than a few decades ago. The best option for their alignment is the application of plaster. How to properly implement this simple, but still requiring certain knowledge process?

Benefits of leveling walls with plaster

Experts identify three ways to make the walls perfectly even:

With the dry method, a flat surface is formed by sheets of drywall, which are attached to a special frame.
The application of plaster is inherent in the wet version of the alignment of the walls.
Combination of dry and wet process. However, it is used quite rarely.

The wet method of leveling the walls is the most advantageous and therefore the most commonly used. With it, it is not necessary to reduce the often already modest dimensions of apartments by erecting a frame for drywall. Walls of any curvature can be leveled with plaster, only the amount of material spent will differ. It is important to properly plaster the walls in order to obtain not only an even, but also a durable coating.

Wall plaster tool

Tool, which will be needed in order to plaster brick walls, cannot be called rare or expensive. Many devices can be found in the arsenal of any apartment owner, and the missing items can be bought at the nearest hardware store.

To clean the wall from the old coating, you will need a steel brush, scraper and chisels.
For reliable adhesion of the plaster on the wall, it is better to pre-make notches. You can use a chisel or a special hammer with a toothed striker. It is known to professionals under the name bucharda.
Brush or roller for wetting the wall before applying the plaster.
A trowel, or in everyday life just a trowel, serves to throw the mortar onto the wall and roughly level it.
To obtain a perfectly even surface of the plaster, you also need to prepare a trowel, a rule and a couple of trowels to align the corners.
For marking and control, a tape measure, a plumb line and a building level with a length of at least a meter are used.

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How to prepare a wall for plaster?

When overhauling from the wall, you must first remove old coating. If you want to plaster a brick partition in a new building, this stage will be absent, but the main thing here is not to lose sight of another important point: fresh brickwork must be given time to shrink. If this is not done, then the coating on the wall will crack or fall off in the near future due to the displacement of the bricks during the shrinkage process.

Remove old plaster with a hammer, scraper and steel brush.
Then they check if there are loose bricks in the masonry. If there are any, they should, if possible, be removed from the wall and re-secured with cement mortar.
Chips and deep cracks are filled with a solution.
The role of notches to improve adhesion will be played by the seams of the brickwork, so they should be cleaned to a depth of about 1 cm.

For better adhesion of the plaster to the wall surface, it is recommended to treat the latter with a special primer. You can make it yourself, using PVA glue as a basis. With a large thickness of the plaster layer, it is advisable to fix a galvanized metal mesh on the wall. Its fastening is also desirable if external surfaces are being plastered.

Installation of beacons on the wall

It is possible to plaster a brick wall without the use of guides or beacons.In this case, the solution is applied in two layers and leveled "by eye". But this method does not guarantee quality without proper skills and dexterity, so it's better set beacons, especially since it is not at all difficult to perform this procedure correctly.

Lighthouses can be fastened with dowels or recessed into the applied solution. One thing is invariable: all guides must be installed strictly vertically and be in the same plane. Usually the first beacon is installed at a distance of 0.5 m from the corner or adjacent wall. The distance between it and subsequent beacons depends on the length of the rule. It must move along the plaster in at least two guides.

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Applying plaster to the wall

The solution is applied to a pre-moistened wall surface. This will increase the drying time of the plaster and prevent cracking. plaster mixture throw with a trowel or spatula. It is convenient to use a falcon. This device is a square made of wood or metal with a handle. A solution is applied to it, which is much more convenient to pick up and throw on the wall, without bending down to the floor each time.

Throw the solution should be quite strong and sweeping movements. Usually the first layer is not leveled. Its thickness is approximately 50 mm.
If it is required to apply plaster with a layer of rather large thickness, then it is recommended to do this in several stages. Each subsequent layer thickness 20-30 mm is applied only after the final drying of the previous one. For better adhesion to the wall, a bar with stuffed nails can be run over a fresh layer of plaster. These scratches will enhance adhesion next layer.
After applying the last layer, the solution should enter beyond the surface of the guides. It is leveled by the rule, moving it from the bottom up in zigzag movements. Excess solution is removed.
In the resulting surface, most likely, small voids (shells) will be found, which must be filled with mortar and leveled with grouts and smoothers. To control the evenness of the surface, they once again pass the rule along the beacons from the bottom up.

The most difficult moment is the removal of corners and junctions of walls and ceiling. Their processing is carried out one day after plastering the walls.

To remove the outer corners, it is convenient to use a wooden lath, which is attached to an adjacent wall and removed after the solution dries.
Internal corners are removed with the help of trowels. You can also use the rule, cutting off its edge at an acute angle for convenience.
When leveling the wall under the ceiling, the rule is placed parallel to the lighthouses.

You can start finishing the wall only after the plaster is completely dry.

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Thus, it is not at all difficult to properly plaster a wall or a brick partition with your own hands. The wall aligned in this way will serve as a reliable basis for creating a unique interior for your apartment.