How to level walls with plaster: which plaster is better, we level with beacons and without (video)

People who begin to make independent repairs, first of all, are faced with the issue of plastering walls. These are not necessarily the walls of a newly commissioned house. Cement plaster accounts for straighten uneven walls in apartments in the secondary housing market. Such work is considered one of the dirtiest and most labor-intensive, so the cost of paying the construction team is several times higher than the cost of purchased materials. However, non-professionals are quite capable of mastering this process and leveling the walls with gypsum plaster without hiring qualified workers.

If you do not know whether it is worth deciding to carry out the work yourself, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the approximate prices for plastering work:

the cost of leveling the walls with a gypsum mixture under the rule in Moscow is 400–460 rubles. for 1 sq. m, in St. Petersburg - from 350 rubles. for 1 sq. m;
the price of wall plastering for lighthouses is from 400 to 660 rubles. for 1 sq. m depending on the material and layer thickness.

Some rules for applying plaster

To obtain a high-quality and durable coating, it is necessary to follow a number of certain rules and know how to properly level the walls with plaster.

The performance of work on leveling the ceiling and walls should be carried out at a temperature of 5 to 25 degrees and at a humidity of not more than 40%.
Within 3 days after plastering, the temperature regime must be maintained at least 18 degrees.
Before work, you must carefully study the instructions written on the building mixtures by the manufacturer.
It must be remembered that only after the drying of one layer, another can be applied to it.
Indoors, plastering work begins from the top of the room, that is, from the ceiling.
The tools used must be washed and cleaned immediately after the work is completed, otherwise the building mixture will harden and it will be impossible to remove it.

Types of plaster

What kind of plaster to choose for leveling the walls?

The walls are leveled, as a rule, with large-fraction mixtures for rough finishing, which include:

Cement (cement-sand) plaster containing cement and sand in various proportions. It requires mandatory leveling with putty, as it cannot give a smooth surface, it is highly durable. Indispensable when leveling the walls in the bathroom under the tiles.
Lime plaster contains lime, which makes it plastic, lighter and not prone to cracking. However, in terms of strength, it is inferior to cement.
Gypsum plaster mixture the most popular, especially among beginners, because it is easy to apply, dries quickly, and in some cases does not require subsequent puttying. Perfect for living rooms. But in no case do not buy it to level the walls in the bathroom: it does not tolerate high humidity.

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Tools and accessories necessary for work

In order to properly align the walls with plaster with your own hands and get perfectly even walls as a result, you need special tools and building materials that must be purchased in advance.

Tools:

Levels, one up to 1 m for slopes and narrow areas of the surface, the second up to 2 m to check the plane of the walls.
Corner to display the correct inner corner.
A plumb line is required when checking the vertical plane.
Construction hammer for beating dried mortar from brick walls.
Brush or roller for applying primer.
Chisel (for better adhesion of the mortar to the surface, notches on the walls and deepening of the joints may be necessary).
Spatulas of two types, narrow and wide.
Trowel for throwing mortar on the wall.
Rule for flattening a plane. For beginners, it is better to take a tool no more than 2 m in length.
Semi-ter for spreading the solution over the surface after application to the wall, leveling corners and other hard-to-reach places with plaster.
Grater for grinding the surface.
Hammer drill with mixer attachment.
Solution container.

How much material to buy for the preparation of the mortar, depends on the area of \u200b\u200bthe room in which the finishing work will be carried out, the degree of curvature of the walls, and also on the type of plaster.

The consumption of gypsum mixture is 8–9 kg per 1 sq. m with a layer thickness of 1 cm;
consumption of cement plaster - 17-18 kg per 1 sq. m.

Solution preparation rules

Plastering walls and leveling the ceiling without beacons is inherently not much different from putty. Therefore, if you made repairs using putty, then it will not be difficult to understand the process of work. Those who have no idea how to level the walls should watch the video before starting work.

If you decide to use Rotband plaster or other types of ready-made dry mix for finishing, then when solution preparation the following points must be taken into account:

Despite the fact that the instructions say that it is diluted with water in a ratio of 1: 1, the water consumption must be your own, verified by experience.
It is better to prepare the mixture in small portions up to 20 liters, mixing it thoroughly with a mixer.
Water is first poured into the mixing container, and then the mixture begins to be added little by little in portions.

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Pre-finishing work

Before plastering the surface, it is necessary to properly prepare it.

If the work will be carried out in a room where the walls and ceiling were previously finished, then you need to remove old paint, wallpaper from the surface and completely clean a layer of weakly adhering plaster. To do this, you will need a spatula and a chisel with a hammer.
When preparing new walls for plastering, it is enough to cover them with a primer.
Detected cracks need to be widened, cleaned and well primed.
Fill deep cracks with cement mixture, level it at the level of the wall surface, large protrusions must be knocked down.
Using a level and a plumb line, check the curvature of the walls.
On smooth surfaces, places of deep depressions and potholes, places with a defect in the floor slabs, it is necessary to attach a plaster mesh.
If the layer is from 30 mm and above, then it is better to take a metal mesh for work.
The grid is fixed with dowels or screws.
To get a smooth surface, people who are first doing wall leveling with plaster, it is better to plaster on lighthouses.

The minimum thickness of the plaster layer for brick walls is 5 mm, for concrete -2 mm. If plastering is done on beacons, the thickness of the layer will depend on the size of the beacons. The beacon profile most often has a thickness of 6 mm.

Leveling walls without beacons

If during the check of the walls before plastering they do not have a large deviation from the plane, it is possible to carry out alignment without beacons or, in other words, under the rule.

A gypsum mixture is prepared at the rate of 1 kg per 0.6 l of water and thoroughly mixed. To check the density, you can apply a little mixture on the wall and try to level it. The composition should be easy to apply, level and not slip.
The amount of the diluted composition should be small: after 25 minutes it will begin to harden and be spoiled.
It is necessary to apply a plaster mortar on the wall to the recesses with a spatula and stretch it with a rule 1 m long or half a meter. If the plaster was not enough, add more.
Then again apply the desired layer of mortar to the next section of the wall and stretch it over the surface.
After several applications, you need to walk with a longer rule (2 m) to strip off excess plaster. So the excess solution will be removed from the hillocks, and it will remain in the pits.

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In the same way, you can level the ceiling.

Alignment of walls with lighthouses

Now let's figure out how to properly align the wall with plaster on the lighthouses.

Beacons are guides under the rule when leveling the solution. They are sold in hardware stores and are perforated metal slats.

With the help of a level and a plumb line, the marking of surfaces for beacons is done. The distance between the beacons should be no more than 0.5 m in height and 1.5 m in width. About 30 cm is indented from the corners of the room.

Lighthouses can be fixed in two ways: self-tapping screws or gypsum plaster. The first method is more accurate and does not require haste when adjusting the level, with a gypsum mortar that is thrown onto the wall with five cakes along the marked line, you must immediately quickly adjust the verticality of the beacon until the mortar has hardened.

A solution is being prepared.
The first layer of plaster is thrown over the section of the wall between the lighthouses.
The solution is leveled with a rule or half-rule by movements in different directions.
The first layer is dried, then dusted by passing over it with a wet roller or brush.

If the average depth of irregularities is 10 mm, a single-layer plaster can be performed using a gypsum mixture.

A second layer of plaster is applied, the rule is installed on adjacent rails and carried out along the beacons in an upward motion.
The solution that has come out of the beacons is removed with a trowel and used in the work.
The process is repeated again.
The waves appearing on the plaster are eliminated with the help of a semi-terre.
An hour after completion of work, the surface must be sanded with a grater.

For getting an even angle First, one wall is plastered, and after it dries, the second.

If the wall will be tiled, the beacons can be left under the finish, if you plan to glue the wallpaper or paint the wall, they must be removed to prevent rust. The gutters from the lighthouses are sealed with plaster with crosswise movements.