UKC

How difficult is it to fit plasterboard? something a novice can do or do i need to hire someone?

In reply to doz generale:

can you work a hammer or a screw driver?

In reply to doz generale:

What are you fitting it to and how will you finish it? It starts at pretty easy.
jk

In reply to doz generale:

easy on walls a little more difficult but not much on ceilings,
you can fit it and use tape instead of plastering ( skimming ) the whole wall .

In reply to jkarran:

At the moment the walls in the room are a mixture of textured wallpaper with bad plaster underneath, Bare flaky plaster and one strange wall that seems to have polyestyrene sheeting under wall paper. I plan to remove the textured stuff and possibly the polyestyrene and fit plasterboard. Would i be able to fit plaster board to old plaster or would i haver to remove that too?

In reply to doz generale:
i would remove the paper and foam see how the wall is, if it is sound, skim it, if not, knock the old plaster of and plasterboard it.
by the sound of the flaky plaster bit you could need to either scrape that off or knock it back to brick , if lath? back to stud and noggins.
its all an easy enough job to do yourself , a "little" messy though.

In reply to doz generale:

Once upon a time plasterboard was in 10mm and 12mm thick form and was relatively easy to handle. A 15mm sheet (or more) is a different beast.

In reply to doz generale:


It is VERY EASY stuff to fit, yes a novice can do it. Easy to cut (score with knife along straight edge, then snap/fold). Easy to fix either with plaster board screws (on battens or ceiling joists) or dab and dot adhesive direct onto sound walls. Best to have helper to help handle the boards. On ceiling sometimes recommended to leave small gap between boards that taped and filled to avoid expansion/movement cracks.

You'll probably want a plasterer to skim the boards after. In which case it may be just better to get a plasterer into to render and skim the walls. Cost delta is relatively small, as they tend to want to round jobs up into 1/2 days. Render (hardwall or bonding) is cheap £7 for 25kgs and can be skimmed after ~40 mins.

...all depends on the quality of finish you want.

In reply to doz generale:

Anyone can fit plasterboard,

I fitted about 40 sheets today (fixing to timber ceilings ,partitions etc.

If you are fitting to timber use drywall screws.

I use a collated screw gun ,but if you're patient ,you can fit the screws individually with a cordless.

In reply to doz generale:
By rights the joints should be skrimmed and the whole wall skimmed when done but with care you can get pretty good results without this.
Note - The dull grey side is fitted 'out' if you are skimming it, the painted white side 'out' if direct painting or papering
If you are not skimming them you may not want to screw it as you'll have loads to screw heads to fill and sand before paint/paper. In this scenario you can stick the board to the wall with plaster, youtube 'dab and dot' as its known

In reply to doz generale:

Fitting plasterboard is easy, but (there's always a "but") you do need to fit it to a sound structure of some sort, either timber or a sound wall underneath. Oh, and of course watch out for pipes and cables if you're screwing or nailing.

In reply to wilkie14c:

All the boards I've used in my bathroom recently have stated that it should only be fixed one way, something like fix other side out printed on the rougher heavier papered side. This was all knauf brand boards so different brands may be different.

To the op, hanging plaster board is quite easy but better if you have 2 people as it's quite heavy and doesn't like to be roughly manhandled. I glued and screwed the boards. More screwed for the ceilings as they are instant but more glued for the stud walls and then plasterboard adhesive for the stuff going directly on to brick (that stuff is so incredibly strong when set). Surface preparation sounds like it will be your main issue. If it's loose get rid of it and if it's porous prime it with a waterproof pva (not normal pva) or a specific priming product.