A couple of years ago I converted my garage into office space, battened the walls, insulated and lined it all then put up plasterboard on the walls and ceilings.

Then to finish off taped the joints and skimmed the plasterboard, (figured it would be good practice for the future). All went ok, perhaps not the best finish in the world but it's a garage, not the hilton. Unfortunately within weeks I discovered that the plaster wasn't sticking to the board, I found out when puling off a bit of bluetac and off it came, plaster and all, back to the plasterboard. DOH!

I've lived with it for a couple of years, but because of this have never really bother to finish it off. But now I figure it best to sort out so am now in the process of scraping it all off ready to start again.

So the question is where did I go wrong and why didn't the plaster stick to the board?

Should I have used PVA first or PBA, or some other bonding agent first? Or should I have used a specific plaster (think I used multi but can't remember tbh) or was my mix wrong somehow?
Obviously its a crap job scraping it all off but next time round I want to at least make sure it stays put....
Where I plastered directly onto the brick in a couple of small areas its fine.

Any advice from the pros would be appreciated as I seem to keep finding conflicting info.

Boards should be fine to skim straight onto will multi for a few months from new, after that you probably need to PVA them.

It could be you didn't use enough water and your mix was to dry.

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what colour is the plasterboard?
how old was the board?
was it dusty?
was it fixed the right side out?
you could pretty much spit in a handful of dry finish, swirl it around with your finger and launch it at a bit of standard plasterboard and it'll stick just fine, in fact if you try to scrape it off again (once its completely dry) you'll end up destroying the board...
green plasterboards (moisture resistant) require a bonding agent prior to skimming...
dust on the boards obviously isnt going to help...
old boards just suck the life out of the plaster real quick but it usually sticks all the same...
prolly a silly question this but you didnt use duplex (foil backed) board and skim the foil did you?
i can honestly say, ive never seen finish plaster 'shell' off a standard plasterboard, well odd dusty patch maybe but not all of it...
it tears, stripes, bubbles (when the boards backwards, tommy walsh stylie) but unless theres something interfering with the suction, it should stay put...

or maybe you used hardwall instead of multi? picture would help?

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Nope it was just standard grey plasterboard, with the tapered edges, (and yes fitted taper side out) not moisture resistant, at least that's not what was ordered. It was all fresh from the merchant although obviously no idea how long it was sat there, all the plaster was new and deffo not hardwall...

In my scrapings I have found some places where the plaster is good and stuck like a b*****d. On one wall one sheet its stuck while the very next one along it hadn't keyed at all and you could just vacuum it off if your wanted.

I thought I had cleaned all the boards prior but I can only think that there must have been some contamination or dust on the boards.

Anyway most of the old crap is off now, and the boards that have come up clean I am just taping and filling the joints, for the others I have coated them in some wickes wba, and then re skimming.

Fortunately as the stuff is so poorly adhered it only takes a few minutes with a scraper to clean all the crap off and the boards look as new! But makes a hell of a mess.

If it doesn't take this time then it'll be out with the duct tape and a sh*t load ahem art :)


As for the boards, as they have been up a couple of years and I am planning on painting directly onto most of them, should I just use a diluted first coat as normal? or should I use PVA?

Everywhere I look I find conflicting info about PVA from that its needed, to it will seal everything and make it nigh on impossible to paint on??

about your plastering problem..but before PVAing read these 4 pages...



to-use-pva-in-paint-or-not-that-is-the-question-t18116.html

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I Know it says I'm On-line, but I might have just left myself logged in, whilst I'm out....

I'll steer clear of the PVA then!

must have dust or something mate.. plastering can be like that at times... i had three walls debond after about 24 hours last year - reskim on a whitish surface i wasnt all that sure about...
the whole wall surface just hung from the edges till i poked my finger through the middle, bit like a giant easter egg...
dropped it and used a bonding agent as opposed to pva and end of problem...
funny ol game this....
good luck with the taping..

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