Each owner of an apartment or private house solves the problem of aligning the walls with his own hands in different ways. There are several ways. They will help to cope with the solution of the problem without involving specialists. Which ones - we will consider in our article today.
Where to start the main work?
First of all, you should inspect the room to determine the amount of work ahead. The basis of all are preparatory activities. This is plastering or puttying of the working surface. The future appearance and terms of operation largely depend on how well it will be produced.
Do-it-yourself alignment of the walls is done before applying any coating: wallpaper, tile or subsequent painting. Perfect smoothness can be achieved by using building mixtures, putty or drywall sheets.
Plaster
Doing the walls with stucco with your own hands is considered the cheapest way, since you will have to spend less on personal funds to purchase the necessary material. However, you need to have some skills to perform these tasks. First of all, preliminary work should be done. This is almost a complete removal of the old layer, up to its foundation, as even the seemingly quite strong old plaster peels off over time. This will lead to a negative result. All the forces and materials spent on repairs will be in vain.
One of the best ways to level the walls with your own hands is to use a lathing. Since this work is quite difficult, requiring time and effort, you need to be prepared that something may go wrong in the beginning. But it is fixable. Diligence and desire will help any newcomer to cope with the problem.
Beacon Leveling
Before the installation of lighthouses, you need to mark the walls. This is necessary in order to correctly and evenly install special galvanized profiles. Aligning the walls of the lighthouses with your own hands will not only help to control the sufficient application of the prepared solution, but will also greatly facilitate the work with it. To do this, you will need metal profiles that will be mounted on the wall in an upright position through a certain length that does not exceed two meters. Necessarily require a building level. It is needed to constantly monitor the evenness of surfaces.
Before you start aligning the walls with your own hands, the working surface should be treated with a primer and dried well. This will help to obtain a stronger adhesion of the mortar to the wall. If the level of curvature will exceed two centimeters, it is recommended to use a reinforcing mesh for the solution. It will be an additional guarantee of the strength of the surface in the finished form.
What to prepare?
During operation, you will need materials:
- A special mixture based on gypsum.
- Craftsmen and spatulas of various widths.
- Convenient container for solution preparation.
- Construction mixer to get a homogeneous mass.
In addition, when removing old plaster, you should have a grater, a punch and a hammer. As fastening material for the profiles, a ready-made mortar for plastering is used. Plastic or metal fasteners can be used. However, it should be borne in mind that their use will lead to an increase in the thickness of the coating, as well as additional material costs. Therefore, aligning the walls of the lighthouses with your own hands will require some skill and time.
Plastering Methods
In order to properly level the walls with stucco with your own hands, the application technology is applied in several rows:
- The first layer is applied with the prepared solution in the form of a spray. It is used to better bond the base layer to the work surface. Recommended thickness is a few millimeters.
- After that, soil is applied to the scattered solution between the beacons. The main work is done using a wide spatula. Thickness can be up to five centimeters. This is a leveling layer. Movements with a spatula are carried out in a zigzag manner, and so on until the walls are completely plastered. After the work done, the beacons are removed. The resulting recesses are sealed with a solution. The finished wall will now take several days to fully dry.
- The next intermediate step before applying the final layer is to align the corners of the walls with your own hands. Compared to the main work done, this is not difficult. Since the surface is small, small spatulas should be used.
- The final step is the application of the main layer, which evens out all minor flaws. Its thickness should not exceed three millimeters. After drying, the working surface is cleaned with graters and graters with sandpaper of various grain sizes.
It is most advisable to use plastering of surfaces in rooms where there is a large deviation in the vertical, since the material is quite heavy and creates a huge load on the walls.
Leveling without beacons
In rooms where the surfaces are fairly even, repairs are carried out without additional devices: profiles and battens. The start of construction work always begins with the cleaning of the work surface, the removal of dust and other debris. Do not forget about the primer, which is applied in at least two layers. For better traction, notching is recommended. Do-it-yourself wall alignment with stucco without beacons is often used to finish utility buildings. It does not require a perfectly flat surface. It is enough that they are visually smooth and have no visible defects. Moreover, the application of plaster gives an additional protective layer to the materials of which the walls are built.
This method can also be used for plastering indoor premises, provided that the working surface is flat. The advantages of this method are obvious. So, the consumption of the used material without beacons is reduced by almost half. And you can bring the coating to perfect evenness with the help of putty.
Rothband
Currently, there are a large number of dry mixes intended for manual plastering of rooms. One of the best proven ones on the market is a gypsum-based mixture with the addition of lightweight fillers. This is the Rothband. It is produced by a German company. It is used to decorate any premises, including rooms such as the bathtub and kitchen, where there is a fairly high humidity.
Do-it-yourself wall alignment with the Rothband has a great advantage over other solutions. Ready mixes have good ductility, practically do not shrink and do not crack as they dry. The low density of the mortar reduces the load on the walls. The material sets faster, which significantly reduces the duration of the repair. It is worth noting that the main work should be carried out at an air temperature of not lower than +18 degrees and a total humidity of not more than 60 percent.
Preparatory work is carried out in the same way as with any other plastering of surfaces. This is cleaning the walls and primer. The solution itself has the ability to quickly set. Therefore, it is recommended to cook it in small quantities. When mixing the mixture, construction mixers or a drill are used. After you need to let the composition stand for several minutes, and then proceed to work.
Drywall
An easy and time-saving way is to align the walls with drywall with your own hands. With the most minimal skills, any novice builder can handle the skin. This material is strong enough, easy to cut. Therefore, with its help, wall defects are easily hidden. Works of any complexity are carried out: you can make niches, door arches and room partitions. Depending on the scale of deviations, two main methods of wall sheathing are used: frame and frameless. In the latter case, fastening takes place directly on the work surface.
Wireframe method
Before starting work, remove the crumbling old plaster and wallpaper. The cleaned surface should be treated with an antiseptic solution, in order to avoid the appearance of mold. Plastering is not required, as the work surface will be closed. Aligning the walls with drywall with a do-it-yourself frame requires the purchase of additional materials. These are metal profiles or wooden bars. But since the latter are subject to decay, in practice they are used much less frequently. You will also need screws and a screwdriver. Before the start of construction work, the walls are marked, along the lines of which the crate will be installed. If insulation or soundproofing is required, then material intended for these purposes is laid in the gaps of the frame. The main installation works for drywall begin in the middle of the structure. Next, you need to gradually move to the corners of the room, since in these places sometimes you have to trim the material. Wall cladding with drywall has many advantages. It can be used with a significant curvature of the surface, the material is universal, as it is suitable for absolutely any wall (concrete, brick, wooden surfaces). It can be mounted by any person who does not even have sufficient skill in the construction. After all, almost always there is an opportunity to correct the mistake made, besides there will not be a lot of dirt and dust. You can make repairs at any time, regardless of air temperature.
The main disadvantage of the frame method is the fact that the volume of the room is significantly reduced. Therefore, it is advisable not to use this method for small rooms. It is not recommended to use it for decoration of rooms with high humidity. Although there are water-resistant materials on the modern market, their life is short and the cost is high.
Frameless Method
In contrast to the use of crates, aligning the walls with drywall without a do-it-yourself frame is the easiest and less expensive method. It is almost always used in rooms with a small area. The fixing of the main material is carried out using special adhesive solutions with the condition that the height of the walls does not exceed the length of the sheet (that is, no more than three meters).
The preparation of the working surface. Flaking pieces of plaster are removed, potholes are sealed. The primer is deeply penetrating. Brickwork will be an ideal option, as alignment of walls without beacons with your own hands can be done after surface treatment with a primer.
When installing drywall on glue, cross-shaped joints are not allowed. In case of slight differences in irregularities, the gluing of the material is carried out with the help of Fügenfüller putty. It is evenly distributed around the perimeter of the sheet. For differences of more than one and a half centimeters, Perlfix glue is used. It is applied to the walls in small heaps with a certain interval. In places where the difference in surface difference reaches four centimeters, strips of the main material are glued under the drywall, and only after that the sheet is glued. The application of material is done neatly and quickly. Flatness of the surface is checked by level.
Putty
Aligning the walls with your own hands with putty should be attributed to the most inexpensive methods. Before starting construction work, as with other methods of finishing the premises, the working surface is cleaned with a mandatory primer. This will provide a more tight grip of the material with the wall. When repairing irregularities, putty with a large texture is used, and for finishing, an elastic mass is required. It is able to provide a perfectly flat surface that is suitable for painting or wallpapering. Putty can be applied on any surface. But wood and concrete walls work best.
To align the walls with your own hands, you will need some materials and tools:
- Putty.
- Primer.
- Set of different sized spatulas.
After applying the first thin layer up to three millimeters thick of the finished material, the surface should dry well. Then the primer is evenly applied. The final stage is the leveling of the surface with an additional layer of putty, not exceeding one millimeter. After the wall surface has completely dried, it is cleaned with fine-grained emery paper. Finished surfaces are used for gluing tiles, wallpaper, and painting.
Conclusion
So, we found out how you can align the wall with your own hands. In addition to the proposed alignment methods, other options apply. Now in the market of building materials there is a huge assortment of wall panels with which you can really fix any curvature of the walls. Their diversity surpasses, so you can choose the material for any style solution: from plastic, solid wood, chipboard and so on.
When embarking on a repair, you should not go in cycles in leveling the walls in one way. You can use several of them, depending on the surfaces of the rooms.