- Alignment requires curved, uneven or littered walls, if any in your home. Alignment of the walls is usually always necessary during repair work. Whatever quality you buy, they will not be able to hide the curvature of the wall from the eyes. When installing furniture, you will not only not hide, but, on the contrary, visually emphasize the defectiveness of the surface. Walls with a large curvature are usually leveled with either plaster mixes. The first step in leveling a curved wall is to prepare its surface. The old surface is cleaned of wallpaper, cracked paint or plaster with a spatula, hammer and perforator. The work must be done carefully.
Wall preparation
- Do not forget about safety when performing repairs! Remember, wires are hidden under the treated surface. Before starting work, disconnect the power supply in the repaired room. If you have been living in an apartment for a long time, consider whether this renovation would be a great opportunity to change the wiring, install additional sockets and switches, and move lighting fixtures to another place.
Padding. Exposure of lighthouses
- After you get rid of the old materials on the wall, treat its surface with a primer designed specifically to ensure that the wall and the new leveling material are perfectly connected and do not crack or peel. Proper wall alignment is a complex and lengthy process. The first step will be the installation of special beacons. They are placed on the surface that you are going to align. Subsequently, these beacons will become the level for all subsequent measurements. Beacons should be installed with special care and responsibility. To obtain the greatest possible accuracy, use in your work a building bubble or laser level, a plumb line or a thread stretched over a horizontal surface. After installing the beacons, we proceed to the next stage. To do this, we use a gypsum plaster mixture in our work. We carry out all work according to the level, conventional or laser, striving to obtain the most even surface in the same plane as possible.
Applying plaster
- The third stage will be the plastering of the walls. The plaster mortar is prepared using the manufacturer's instructions on the package. For faster and better kneading, we use a drill with a special nozzle in the form of a mixer or a plaster station for machine application of plaster. We start work from the bottom of the wall, strictly focusing on the position of the lighthouses.
How to align wall corners
Date: 2012-08-13
From this article, you will learn how to straighten wall corners. At the beginning, a little theory about why and when it is appropriate to align the corners of the walls, and then step by step with photographs.
So why are the corners of the walls crooked? Because the plaster is not of high quality. Curved corners are striking. In any case, during the repair, the corners must be aligned. This can be done by level or by plane (by bumps).
Which method and when to apply? If the walls are prepared for wallpapering, then it is better to level the corners. If the wallpaper with the selection of a pattern, or have vertical stripes, then with curved walls you will have to cut the wallpaper in the corner, as a wrinkle forms. This will spoil the whole look of the wallpaper, the picture will shift. For other types (painting, decorative plaster) you can align the corners on the plane. Personally, I think that it is better to align not only the corners of the walls, but the whole walls.
Brief technology: The corners are leveled with gypsum plaster, making a beacon in the very corner, and then the corner is tightened to the width of the rule. The longer the rule, the smoother and less noticeable the transition from the corner to the wall. It is necessary to use gypsum plaster (starting putty), as it allows you to level fairly thin layers without sagging.
Let's get started. You will need:
- Primer
- Gypsum plaster
- Drill with whisk
- rule
- Buckets
- Spatula
- Squirt (required)
- Sandpaper number 40 and grater
I will say right away that it is better to have two rules in the arsenal, one is 2.5 m, the second is 1.5 m. It is good to make a lighthouse first, since you will capture the entire wall in height at once, and tighten the plaster with the second.
Before you align the corners of the walls, you need to determine where the bumps are. To do this, put the rule in a corner and look at the gap. Mark the most protruding places with a pencil. Now put the rule horizontally on the bump in the corner and check if there is a gap. If there is, then the hillock can be knocked down. Thus, you will need less materials to level the corner, because the layer will become smaller.
If you use a 1.5 m rule to tighten the plaster, then we prime the walls from the corner to a distance slightly greater than the length of the rule - 1.6 m. After it dries, you can make a lighthouse in the corner. You already know where your hillocks are, and you need to make a beacon along them, using them as stops.
Dilute the gypsum plaster, mix it twice so that it is without lumps. Then apply a 5 cm wide track on the wall in the very corner and pull it vertically with the rule. The result should look like this beacon:
Pay attention to some subtleties. In each corner you need to make two lighthouses, since there are also two walls. And if you align all the corners in the room, then you first need to do one beacon in the corner, in a circle. This way you won't damage the neighboring beacons in one corner while they are wet. If you have only a short rule, which is not enough for the entire height, then the lighthouses are made along the bottom, and when the bottom hardens, the top part of the lighthouse is completed. If the layer is too thin and “tears”, then it should be diluted with water to a more liquid state.
Separately, let's talk about beacons by level. For their device, you will also need a level. Attach the rule to the wall and determine the most protruding place. This will be one reference point for the beacon. Then you need to drive a chopstick into the wall and screw in a self-tapping screw so that you end up with a strictly vertical beacon. Read more about lighthouses in the article: Application gypsum plaster. Starter putty.
After the beacons dry, you can tighten the wall using the rule. We need to bring the wall and the corner to nothing. To do this, we spread putty on the length of the rule, rest the rule on the lighthouse in the corner and on the wall and tighten the excess. As a result, we get this angle:
You need to use a squirt gun, as a thin layer of putty will tear in the area of the lighthouse and at the opposite end. This happens when you re-tighten. spray the surface with water again. When removing the putty from the rule back into the bucket, immediately throw the last one to the side (from the side of the lighthouse). She is dirty and dry. Once in a bucket of normal plaster, she will draw furrows for you.
After the plaster has hardened, it can be stretched in a thin layer to fill in all scratches and grooves. After complete drying, the corners should be sanded. To do this, put the rule against the wall and move it up and down. Black marks are bumps that should be sanded. The farther from the corner, the crooked the wall, because you didn’t make a lighthouse on the wall itself.
You can also align the corners of the walls above and below, so that the plinth and baguette look smoother.
That's all, write your opinion on how to align the corners of the walls in the comments.
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How to level walls - leveling walls (4 photos)
Small cracks or bumps will help hide expensive corrugated wallpaper, but if the walls in your apartment are “wavy”, then only alignment will help.
According to the types of materials used, there are two types of wall alignment - dry (installation various designs from drywall) and raw (using building mixtures). Each of these methods is effective only if a strict sequence of work is observed, but has its own characteristics.
So, the alignment of walls with plaster is used for small differences in "heights" - from 30 to 60 mm. If necessary, you can level the walls with a greater curvature in a crude way, but this will require more time and money for material and work. In this case, it is better to give preference to the installation of the frame, followed by plasterboard sheathing.
But no matter which method you choose, the main thing is to pay maximum attention to aligning the corners. Curvature, imperceptible to the eye, will manifest itself when gluing borders and installing skirting boards.
Immediately before leveling the wall, it is necessary to carry out a series of preparatory work.
First of all, it is necessary to determine the dimensions of the wall irregularities. For horizontal measurement, you can use a cord, pulling it tightly along the wall, or use a building level, the length of which should not be less than 1.5 m. Vertical irregularities are measured with a plumb line. If the differences are not more than 3 - 5 cm, then this wall defect is corrected with the help of building mixtures.
Leveling walls with plaster
When choosing a dry building mix, it is necessary to pay attention to both the thickness of the applied layer and the type of “binding” material (cement or gypsum).
When using drywall for wall cladding, pay attention to the base - it should not have crumbling fragments and be durable.
The wall lined with plasterboard must be protected from exposure to excessive moisture. This wall also cannot be subjected to spatial deformation. Do not allow freezing of the wall and the appearance of condensate.
And in order for drywall sheets to hold better and longer, the wall must be cleaned of residues of mortar, oil, wax and other substances that impair the contact properties of the adhesive. After that, the wall must be primed.
On very porous, loose surfaces, apply with a brush or sprayer.
On walls that do not absorb moisture - and other dense low-porous surfaces - a special primer marked "concrete active".
Before installation drywall sheets do not forget to mount hidden wiring. Mounting boxes under the sockets should not protrude above the wall surface by more than 20 mm.
Pros and cons of leveling walls with plaster and drywall
The use of building mixtures does not reduce the living area of the apartment. But this method is quite laborious, in the production of work there is a lot of dirt - debris and dust.
When facing walls with drywall is not required pre-cleaning surfaces. In addition, heat and sound insulating materials can be laid behind the frame, as well as various communications can be hidden. But the walls sheathed with plasterboard “eat up” part of the usable area of the apartment and withstand a much lower load compared to a wall covered with building mixture.
When buying material, pay attention to the color of drywall sheets. Its moisture-resistant varieties can be distinguished by a green cardboard coating, while ordinary sheets will be gray. For wall cladding in bathrooms, kitchens and other rooms with high humidity choose GKLV sheets.
Got crooked walls? align! » do-it-yourself apartment renovation
If the walls in the apartment are crooked and you absolutely do not want to put up with this, there are several options:
1. Paste wallpaper with a cheerful pattern to visually hide the unevenness of the walls.
2. Install wall panels.
3. Straighten the walls with drywall sheets.
4. Arm yourself with the necessary plaster mixtures, beacons, squares - and use them to level the walls completely and irrevocably.
With option 1, popular in Soviet times, everything is obvious - it will not radically improve the situation. For this reason, let's move on immediately to the remaining 3rd ones.
Panels
There are quite a few advantages to this option. There is no need to specially prepare the walls, there are more than 40 varieties of panel decors today: under natural wood, with imitation of foliage, marble, there are even similar ones that you can’t distinguish from. The panels are moisture resistant, have good sound absorption and thermal insulation.
They are usually attached to a crate (metal or made of a frame that is attached to the wall), under which it is possible to hide the wires, because there is a space of up to 25 millimeters between the panel and the wall. And it's easy to replace: I installed the crate 1 time - and change the panels as much as you like, like ordinary wallpaper.
Drywall
Plastering materials: traditions and difficultiesPlastering worksWhat a parquet restorer should understand The Basics of Methods This now fashionable material is a well-forgotten old one - simply dry plaster: after all, a GK sheet is a very dense cardboard on a gypsum base. It also needs a crate, metal or wood. However, it is possible to attach a sheet of GK to the wall without a crate - just stick it with the so-called gypsum mastic test, which is made of building gypsum and 2 percent bone solution (glue is necessary so that the gypsum does not harden in the same minute). Drywall is also the best base for wallpaper. They can be glued without any pre-treatment, the only thing worth doing is to cover the nail heads with nitro enamel or alcohol varnish to prevent rusting. And it is possible not to paste over the walls, but, for example, to whitewash or paint with oil or glue paint, like ordinary plastered surfaces. It is not advisable to just use lime paints, as they do not adhere well to cardboard.
Plaster
When leveling with plaster mixtures (gypsum or cement-sand), you will have almost no loss of space, because it is placed directly on a curved wall. Of the additional material, you will only need plaster profiles: plaster beacon guide rails (or simply "beacons") and protective plaster corners.
Although pay attention to plaster mixtures.
In terms of cost-quality ratio, experts divide plasters into subsequent groups.
I-I - the cheapest materials produced by outdated methods. They are applicable in those situations where the decisive factor is cost, not quality.
The second group consists of high-tech mixtures that are made by domestic enterprises jointly with foreign companies or on their own, but with the use of imported components (most often, these are modifying additives).
And finally, the original plasters of well-known foreign companies are related to the third group.
For those who are planning to carry out a good repair of buildings, experts advise buying materials of the II and III groups, if possible. At the same time, plaster compositions of Russian and foreign manufacture can be successfully combined, cladding the most "responsible" expensive imported building materials, and all others - also of high quality, but cheaper domestic ...
It will come in handy
Lighthouses provide an opportunity in a short time and without extra costs get a smooth plastered surface with a selected thickness of the plaster layer. In addition, they make it possible to maintain the solidity of the walls after plastering, because they remain in the wall and do not require subsequent dismantling. And no less important is that highly qualified this kind of work does not ask, you can cope with it yourself.
Plaster corners protect the corners of the premises from damage. They also create these most even and beautiful corners.
Online about wall alignment:
Wall alignment. how to level the walls with your own hands.
I already wrote about leveling ceilings. Now I will describe in detail how to align the walls. Unfortunately, in our old, and often just built and commissioned houses, walls and ceilings leave much to be desired. Drops, waves, all kinds of cracks and dents. If you don't care appearance your apartment, then definitely before using the walls for wallpapering, overlaying or other types of finishing works they need to be aligned.
How to level walls? First of all, as in the case of leveling the ceiling, decide how you want to level the walls in your apartment. This can be done with building mixtures or using drywall.
Have you decided what kind of manipulations with your wall you will do after leveling? Are you going to align the walls with wallpaper? Under the tiles? Or are you just going to paint it?
If, for example, you want to stick wallpaper or paint a wall, then both options are possible: both leveling the walls with drywall, and using building mixtures. If you are going to lay tiles, then we need wall leveling compounds for a more rigid adhesion of the tile to the wall.
How to level walls with building mixtures? Now I will explain how to do it yourself and quite simply. In one of the upper corners of our wall we drive in a nail, leaving somewhere 2-3 mm on the surface. This is our first beacon. Next, we take the thread and attach some kind of load to it, the same nut. We get a hang. We fasten this plumb line to our nail in such a way that the load almost reaches the floor. We wait until the plumb line stops swinging and freezes in place. We get a straight line. We drive in the second carnation at the bottom of our wall so that the thread and the head of the nail are on the same line. Approximately as in the picture on the right.
The owners of old houses, or even new ones, in which poor-quality finishes are made, often face the problem of curved walls. You can ignore the curved walls and then this will not be a problem. But if you want the apartment to look decent, you have to take up the trowel.
alignment concrete walls, as well as alignment brick wall, carried out by plastering. But before that, the wall must be primed.
Primer
First of all, we impregnate the wall with a primer, which improves the adhesion of the plaster to the wall. If the wall surface is loose, for example, consisting of foam concrete blocks, then it is advisable to apply several layers of soil. In general, with any wall material, if the primer is absorbed quickly, a second layer is definitely needed. And if you abandon the primer in order to save time and money, then there is a high risk that the plaster will fall off and you will have to redo everything.
How to set beacons for plaster
Gone are the days when walls were plastered "by eye" and the quality of work depended only on the experience of the plasterer. Now, guide beacons are used for plastering, thanks to which even a beginner can create a perfectly flat plastered surface. To do this, you need guide beacons, which are sold in almost any hardware store. They are different sizes. Beacon number 6 is best for us. Any quick-drying material is used to attach the beacons to the wall. Perfect option- building alabaster, which dries in a couple of minutes. It is better to start work with a small wall. When "hands are full" on a small wall, then it will be easier to cope with a large area. First of all, extreme beacons are installed, i.e. extreme right and extreme left. But we install them not from the very edge of the wall, but about 20 centimeters from the edge. We measure the height of the ceiling and cut off the beacon of the desired length. We knead the alabaster with water and apply a small amount of the solution to the wall (top, bottom and middle). And while it has not hardened, quickly press and align the beacon. In this case, several requirements must be met.
Firstly, the beacon must be installed so that a plaster layer of 15 - 30 mm would be obtained as a result. Those. outer side the beacon should be at this distance from the wall. But in the case of a very curved wall, you can deviate from this rule and exceed the allowable 30 mm, because. otherwise the wall will not be leveled.
Secondly, the beacon must be installed strictly according to the level. Therefore, we apply a level to the lighthouse and align its vertical position. We hold the lighthouse in this position for a minute so that the alabaster hardens. Install the beacon on the other side of the wall in the same way. After that, it remains only to install intermediate beacons. We install them at an equal distance from each other, so that the distance between them is a meter or a half. The installation of intermediate beacons is somewhat different. They must be installed not relative to the wall, but relative to the extreme lighthouses. To do this, you can take a long, even rail and attach it to the extreme beacons, or pull the fishing line from above and below from the left beacon to the right one and install an intermediate beacon in accordance with the position of the rail or fishing line. Then you can be sure that all beacons are in the same plane. This work is best done together, because. it is necessary to apply the rail and hold the beacon, which is difficult to do alone. This is the most important stage of work, because the result of all work depends on how to put the beacons on the wall. After that, plaster must be applied under the lighthouse along its entire length. If this is not done, then when we begin to press the rule against the lighthouse, the lighthouse will begin to bend and a cavity will turn out in the wall. Therefore, it is impossible for the lighthouse to hang in the air, it must rest against the plaster along its entire length.
Plastering
When the solution under the beacons has dried up, you can start plastering. For this purpose, it is best to choose a gypsum plaster mixture. Why plaster? Because such plaster is able to "breathe", and it will provide the room with a better microclimate. Thoroughly mix the plaster mixture, so that a homogeneous mass without lumps is obtained. After that, let the mixture brew for five minutes. But before that, we read the instructions on the packaging with the mixture and do everything in accordance with the instructions, because. specific recommendations may vary. If there are depressions on the wall, the thickness of the plaster in which will have to exceed 30 mm, then first you need to close up these depressions with mortar, wait a day and only after that start plastering the entire wall. If this is not done and a large layer is immediately sculpted, then the plaster will slide down, or it will simply fall off. The solution is applied to the wall with a trowel or trowel. In this case, the solution can be smeared into the wall, or it can be thrown. Who is more comfortable. We fill with a solution all the space between the beacons. We take a long rule, press it to two lighthouses and stretch it from bottom to top, while making small movements to the right and left. We remove the solution from the rule, clean its working part and repeat the procedure. It is advisable to wash the rule periodically, because. a rule with a dried mixture slips worse and a good result cannot be achieved with it. Next, we fill up all the holes with a trowel and again go through the rule. The result should be a perfectly flat surface. Then we move on to the next gap between the beacons and repeat the procedure.
In order for the work to be of the highest quality and the plaster does not crack, it is recommended to use a paint grid. To do this, we need a paint grid with a cell of 5 by 5 mm. We impose it on fresh plaster, take a spatula and smooth the mesh with it, pressing it into the surface of the plaster. The result should be a flat surface, and the grid should not protrude outward.
When the entire wall is plastered, we take a break of 10-12 days so that the plaster has time to dry, and proceed to puttying.
How to remove beacons from plaster
No, this is not necessary so that the corners can be reused. The point is different. The walls of the apartment sometimes start to get damp (especially in autumn, when the air humidity is high and the heating is not yet turned on). The corners that are in damp plaster gradually begin to rust. Over time, rust breaks through the plaster, putty and begins to appear on the wallpaper. A very unpleasant surprise! To insure against this, after the plaster dries a little, it is necessary to remove the beacons from the wall. This is done simply. Above the upper edge of the lighthouse we peel off the plaster (it is advisable to mark the location of the lighthouses in advance, for example, with a line on the ceiling, so as not to guess where they are later). We pick up the edge of the lighthouse so that it protrudes. Then we grab it with pliers and tear it off the wall. We also do with all the other beacons. After that, we plaster the formed depressions.
Puttying
So, we have a flat wall, but with cracks, pores, small pits. All this will fix puttying. For this purpose, we use gypsum putty, intended for internal works. Mix it with water (after reading the instructions on the package). We wait 5 minutes. Mix again and get to work. We take a long spatula, apply putty along its entire length and smear the putty on the wall. There is one here important point. Plaster is not always perfectly smooth. Often it consists of small undulating irregularities. If you attach a bar, a level, or at least the spatula itself to the wall, it will become clear whether there are these irregularities and in which direction they are directed. If they are, then the spatula must be driven parallel to the waves. In this case, the putty will ideally fill all the cavities between the waves. On the packaging with the putty mixture, the permissible thickness of the putty layer is indicated. When working, you must strictly adhere to this value. If this value is exceeded, then the putty may begin to move down, forming smudges, or crack when dry. Slowly, gently putty the entire wall. At the same time, we apply the mixture to the wall with the movement of the spatula in one direction. Then we clean the spatula and move in reverse side remove excess putty. And if you apply putty and remove excess by moving in the same direction, then it will be much more difficult to achieve a good result. It must also be remembered that each new layer is applied slightly overlapping the previous one. If cavities remain, then we immediately cover them up and again level everything with a spatula. The more carefully we putty the wall, the less sanding will have to be done later! After the putty has hardened, we grind the wall with sandpaper. If you plan to glue the wallpaper, then it does not make sense to grind hard. It is enough just to remove all the protruding places, which does not take much time. But if you plan to paint, then you will have to spend more time, because you can only level the walls for painting by neat and high-quality puttying and sanding.
Before you start leveling very curved walls in a room, they need to be prepared. It is required to remove old wallpaper or cracked paint, and, if necessary, remove the swollen layer of plaster. This must be done carefully so as not to accidentally damage the wiring. When the walls are cleaned, they need to be treated with a primer. On primed walls, the leveling material will lie better. To align the walls with drywall, you need to use a special mounting adhesive. Sold at any hardware store.
Alignment of walls with drywall
The most common way to level walls.
Pros:
- comfortable and fast way alignment of curved walls;
- saving material;
- durable uniform surface.
Minuses:
- hollow, echoing wall;
- wall thickness increases.
After the walls are prepared, you need to find out the curvature of the wall. If the curvature is up to 7 mm, then you can simply apply glue to the drywall sheet and glue it. If the curvature is up to 20 mm, then we apply glue in the form of cakes around the entire perimeter on the drywall sheet. If the walls are too curved, and the curvature is longer than 20 mm, then first we glue the primed plasterboard strips to the wall, and the sheet of material itself will be glued to these strips.
Please note that the glue sets quite quickly, about half an hour. Therefore, it is not necessary to coat the entire wall with it at once. Drywall sheets should be wall, and preferably moisture resistant. After applying the glue, we apply the drywall to the wall, and at the top and bottom we make an indent of about 10-20 mm, and put it under the lining sheet. This will evaporate excess moisture glue, so it sticks faster. If there are outlets for communications in the wall, holes should be cut in advance on drywall.
frame method. To level very curved walls, you can use the frame method of installing drywall. The essence of the method is to install a drywall sheet on frames made of wood or metal profiles. If you want to use wood as a frame, then keep in mind that it must be dried as much as possible, otherwise the bars will dry out when the wall is leveled, which will lead to the curvature of the entire structure. Sheets can disperse and gaps form between them, so it is better to use metal profiles. Metal carcass requires the installation of two types of profile: rack-mount and guide. Guide profiles are needed to install the contour, and are installed parallel to each other, first to the ceiling surface, and then, using a plumb line, the exact location of attachment to the floor is determined. To do this, we take self-tapping screws and connect the guide profiles and the rack profiles, which are inserted into the guides in increments of 50 cm.
Leveling very curved walls using plaster
without spending a lot of energy and Money? There is an option -. There are two types: gypsum and cement-sand. Any mixture will do, but gypsum mixture is more convenient to work with and the quality is higher. At the corners of the walls we attach beacons with a mass, as close as possible to the wall, in order to determine the level of curvature. We also install beacons along the wall. Now we knead the solution until a homogeneous thick state so that it does not drain from the spatula. Next, we wet the walls with water and throw a solution on it. After that, we evaluate the level of the plastered wall in accordance with the beacons, and remove the excess solution. When we got rid of the bumps, we rub the bumps with a grater. When the solution hardens slightly, we get rid of the beacons, and close up the remaining grooves.
Every person wants to live in beautiful apartment with high-quality repairs, in which tastefully selected and modern furniture as well as a comfortable interior. However, if the room has smooth walls, there is no visibility of this splendor. Often, to hide a small blockage, apartment owners try to close it with furniture or use other tricks.
However, all these efforts are in vain, because only the alignment of uneven walls will help correct the defect, and not their masking. For example, furniture can only emphasize these shortcomings.
Why are walls crooked?
Uneven walls happen for various reasons. Most often in the old housing stock, the ceilings and walls are very uneven. However, it is difficult to find ideal walls in new-build apartments.
Most prefabricated high-rise buildings have curved walls because the panels are uneven. However, this unevenness allows you to operate at home, since the unevenness does not affect reliability. When the plate is installed, it can turn around a little.
To understand this clearly, take a landscape sheet and put it on the table. The sheet is even, however, try to lift it by taking the ends diagonally, pull the ends in different directions - this will open interesting fact, which will happen with the landscape sheet.
Concrete slabs are also bent in the same way. They have slight deviations, which are sufficient to form a blockage of the walls and break the geometry of the corners in the room.
How to determine vertical deviations
Exists real opportunity self-alignment of the walls, however, first you need to determine the location of the blockage. To do this, pay attention to each corner to assume that some of the walls are uneven, and then check if you think correctly.
This can be done in an elementary way: tie a heavy object to the end of a strong and thin rope. Attach its opposite end to the corner where the top floor meets the walls. If the rope is parallel to the walls, then they are even, and when observing deviations, you can understand the existing blockages that need to be eliminated.
It is best to check the evenness of the walls with two people: one needs to hold the cord, and the other from a few meters away to see if the lines are parallel.
You can use another option to assess the condition of the surface of the walls. To carry out this work, you must have a homemade plumb line with a non-rotating load. Hanging is carried out in each corner of the room, for which the cord must be fixed on a nail driven into the wall.
The place for hammering a nail should be near the ceiling so that the plumb line is located near the wall without touching its surface.
After that, the plumb line moves along the nail until it reaches the optimal position. Further, at the bottom of the wall, another nail is hammered, the head of which should touch the plumb line.
A similar operation is performed with the other edge of the wall. The next step is to pull the cords along the lighthouse points, of which there are only four. The result is an accurate picture that allows you to judge the state of the wall surface.
If the deviation is small (up to 10 mm), when performing repairs, putty the walls, using gypsum and cement mixtures for leveling.
If vertical deviations exceed this figure, it is necessary to level the walls with drywall.
First you need to prepare the surface
Before starting work on leveling the walls, you need to know what order should be observed in this case. First, the surface must be prepared, since it is very important that the base is strong and there are no crumbling areas in it. At the preparation stage, old wallpaper and dilapidated plaster are removed.
After cleaning and preparing the wall, it is carefully primed using a roller, brush or sprayer. After priming the base, you need to let it dry for at least 12 hours. This circumstance makes it advisable to prime the walls in the evening so that they can dry overnight.
What are the ways to level the walls
Given the materials used for work, the curvature of the walls is leveled in two ways:
- The first is the crude method, in which building mixtures are used.
- The second method can be considered dry, which is associated with the installation of the structure.
The methods are equally good, but only if all processes are clearly observed. Each method has its own distinctive features in terms of advantages and disadvantages.
Leveling walls using plaster is most often used if there are small differences - up to 50 mm. You can also use plaster for surfaces that have a large curvature, however, you need to prepare for the additional financial costs that will be needed to complete the work and purchase additional materials. It means that the best option to align the large curvature of the walls is to carry out the installation of the frame and sheathing it with drywall.
We level the walls with plaster and beacons
After determining the possible irregularities of the walls and preparing their surface, work begins related to their direct alignment.
Do not forget in a timely manner, before starting work, turn off electrical energy. And when cleaning walls, do it carefully, trying not to damage the elements of electrical wiring hidden in the walls.
To ensure that the plaster is firmly fixed, be sure to prime the walls. Thanks to this operation, undesirable delamination of materials can be prevented. The primer helps to increase the moisture resistance. The use of cement milk, which includes cement, water and sand, is widely used for cement mixture.
most popular and in a simple way to avoid wall curvature is to level the walls with plaster.
If wet leveling with plaster is used, it is convenient to use the technology of "beacons", which are special metal elements made of a flexible material - aluminum.
It is necessary to insert a beacon into a curved wall in order to align the wall with it in the future. To better understand the function of the lighthouse, we will take: if the wall is littered from above, then the lighthouse rests against the wall below, and from above, between the lighthouse and the wall, some material is placed to eliminate unevenness.
The size of the tool with which you will apply the plaster affects the distance that should be between the beacons.
How to install beacons
Beacon rails are installed along with the installation of profiles on opposite walls. To check each lighthouse for verticality, plumb lines are used, and these profiles are attached to the wall using building plaster. Gypsum must be applied to the rail in several places, keeping distances between them up to 50 cm. After that, the cord is pulled through the lower, middle and upper profiles. The following rails are also mounted on the wall, but the cord should only lightly touch them.
You can attach beacons with self-tapping screws, but this slows down the speed of work, which subsequently greatly simplifies them. Even for a non-professional, it will be easy to adjust the vertical lines by twisting or unscrewing the screws.
What is better to use for leveling walls
The use of the leveling compound depends on the maximum thickness of the leveling layer. It is also affected by the type of binder used - cement or gypsum. The use of a cement mixture is advisable for rooms with high humidity (bathroom, kitchen), and gypsum compositions are used for residential premises, since gypsum is able to maintain the desired microclimate in the room well.
Using the "wet method" to level the walls
After finishing the placement of the beacons, it remains to do the following work: dilute 10-15 liters of plaster and apply it on the wall between the beacons. The mixture should have a certain consistency: not very liquid, so that it does not slip off the walls, and not too thick - in this case it is difficult to apply. When using gypsum compositions in work, they must be in such quantity that they can be worked out within an hour.
After you have applied the mixture to the wall, take a rule that has the required length and press it against the beacons, then leveling the surface, performing bottom-up or top-down movements. If there is not enough mixture in some places, it is added and again carried out by the rule. Repeating such actions is necessary until you can make the wall perfect and even.
After the applied layer of plaster has dried, you will notice that the wall is rough. Therefore, it is necessary to process it by applying a finishing putty, and then grinding it using fine sandpaper.
This method of leveling the wall is not without advantages. This does not reduce the usable area of the room. There are also disadvantages, which are expressed in the need for preliminary cleaning of the walls and the laboriousness of the process, which leaves behind a large amount of debris and dust.
A separate moment of wall alignment is the alignment of the corners of the walls, which, no doubt, everyone considers the most problematic areas. To carry out these complex works, an angle trowel, level and other auxiliary tools are used. Aligning corners is laborious and difficult. This job requires experience and knowledge. In order for the mortar to set faster in the corners of the walls, a little gypsum is added to the mixture.
How to eliminate significant wall irregularities
It is not easy to level the walls in rooms with large drops and terrible curvature of the walls. In this case, it is best to use specific structures that must first be mounted and then sheathed with drywall.
This method has several disadvantages, the main of which is the reduction of usable area. There are also positive aspects in the method: no preliminary work is carried out to prepare the surface, in addition, communication lines are easily hidden inside the installed frame and a layer of sound and heat insulating material is laid.
This method has more positive qualities than negative ones, so it is often used. First you need to install the frame, and then sheathe it with drywall.
This is how blockages are leveled, which do not disappear anywhere, but only hide under the sheathing material. This is not very convenient for small rooms, because this way it becomes even smaller.
Preparing walls for wallpapering
Any repair that apartment owners begin begins with the question of leveling the walls for wallpapering. For wallpaper, as for other decorative coatings, a smooth surface is required, which must be prepared.
With minor irregularities, the walls are treated with ordinary putty. The work is carried out using a spatula designed for jointing cracks and their putty. It is most convenient to use two spatulas with medium sizes.
If the amount of work is large, putty is diluted in the basin so that you do not have to jump up and down and back. If you need to cover up small holes and crevices, use a small bowl.
When performing large volumes of work, the mixtures are bred using a drill and a special nozzle for it.
If it is necessary to apply a thick layer, the surface is treated with a special starting putty before that. If you follow the correct application technology, putty must be applied in several steps, applying each layer after the previous one has dried. Most often, three layers are laid, the last of which is done with finishing putty for final work. After drying, the entire surface of the wall is cleaned with sandpaper.
The exception to the rule is not the bathroom.
The most common reason for leveling the walls in the bathroom is the type of upcoming finish. If you are going to lay tiles, then you will need knowledge of how the walls are properly aligned for laying tiles. Work performed with tiles are considered a responsible and serious process that must be properly approached, and in this case it is unacceptable to lay tiles on an uneven wall. Therefore, before starting the main process, think about how to level the walls in the bathroom using existing technology.
Ceramic tiles can only be laid on a flat wall, because if you ignore this condition, the results will be disastrous: the masonry will bulge out and the appearance of the room will be spoiled. It is best to level the walls with beacons.
Walls with beacons have more strength, because when all the leveling work is completed, the beacons do not get out of the walls, as a result of which they support the plaster. If the work is done using plaster triangles, excellent 90-degree angles are obtained.
The plaster is applied using the "throwing" principle, so a trowel is used. cover first small plot walls. After applying the mixture, it should dry, after which the excess parts of the solution that go beyond the beacons are cut off. Water is added to the cut solution and they again need to wipe the following areas.
When the plaster dries, the walls must be primed, and on top ground cover lay tiles. Thanks to the primer layer, there is a better adhesion of the adhesive solution and the base.
Knowing several options for leveling walls, using all the subtleties and tricks of this process, you can come to good results. Plasterers, masters of their craft, rely on a quality surface, the correct composition of the plaster and precise beacons.
If you are aiming for a better life, you will not live anyhow. Human housing must be designed properly: the walls must be even, the decor must be beautiful, the furniture must be suitable. By creating such conditions in your home, you will feel how your life has become more comfortable. It is better than daily contemplation of crooked corners and collapsed walls. Ideally smooth walls should become the norm. This ideal must be striven for, since curved walls cannot be hidden not behind high-quality and expensive wallpaper, nor chic furniture.
A beautiful apartment and high-quality renovation, tastefully selected modern furniture and a comfortable interior are the dream of any person. But only all this splendor fades in rooms with uneven walls. Very often, people try to hide a small blockage and cover it with furniture or resort to other tricks. In vain, since uneven walls need to be leveled, not masked. For example, furniture only emphasizes such a disadvantage. Therefore, in this article we will talk about how to align the walls and achieve the desired result.
The reasons for uneven walls can be different. Ceilings and walls in old houses often leave much to be desired, but in many new buildings they are also not ideal. Most panel houses have curved walls due to the fact that the panels are a little uneven. But only not to such an extent that the house cannot be put into operation - this aspect does not affect its reliability in any way. During the installation itself, the plate could turn around a little. For a more visual representation of the situation, you need to find a landscape sheet of paper and put it on the table. The sheet is even, but if you take it by the ends diagonally, and then pull one end up and the other down, you can see an interesting picture. What happens to the sheet? A concrete slab can also be bent according to the same principle. This deviation is insignificant, but it is enough to block the walls and violate the geometry of the corners in the room.
Definition of vertical deviations
It is quite possible to level the walls with your own hands, but first you need to determine where there is a blockage. To do this, you should pay attention to the corners, if there is an assumption that some wall is uneven, then you need to check the correctness of your thoughts. This is done in an elementary way: a heavy object is tied to one end of a thin but strong rope, and the opposite end must be attached to the corner of the junction of the upper ceiling and the wall. Well, are the line of the wall and the rope parallel? This means that the walls are even, and if deviations are observed, that is, there is a blockage and it needs to be eliminated.
Important: it is advisable to carry out such a check together - one person holds the cord, and the second evaluates the parallelism of the lines from a distance of several meters.
There is another option for assessing the condition of surfaces. For this process, you will also need a homemade plumb line with a weight that does not rotate. In each corner you need to perform the so-called hanging. To do this, the plumb line is fixed on a nail driven into the wall.
Important: the nail is hammered near the ceiling, so that the plumb line is located near the wall, but does not touch its surface.
A similar operation must be carried out with the other edge of the wall. The next step is to stretch the cords along the four lighthouse points, as a result, you can get an accurate picture of the state of the wall surface.
Determination of the verticality of the walls
With a slight deviation of 10 mm during the repair, it will be necessary to carry out putty work using gypsum and cement mixtures for leveling. And with more significant vertical deviations, it will be necessary to resort to leveling the walls with drywall.
Getting Started - Surface Preparation
How to properly align the walls, that is, what order should be followed? First, the surface is prepared: a solid base and the absence of crumbling areas are important. It is also necessary to remove the remnants of old wallpaper and dilapidated plaster. Next, the prepared wall is carefully primed with a roller, brush or sprayer. The primed base should dry for about 12 hours, so this work is best done closer to the night, so as not to waste time waiting.
Ways to level walls
Depending on the materials used, there are 2 ways to level the curvature of the walls. The first is raw (using building mixtures) and the second is dry (assembly of structures). Both methods are good, but only with strict observance of all processes. And each has its own characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. Basically, leveling with plaster is used for small differences (30-50 mm). Of course, they can also be used for surfaces with greater curvature. But these are additional financial costs for both work and materials. Therefore more best option in such cases - installation of the frame and lining it with drywall.
Plaster leveling with beacons
So, if the irregularities have already been determined, and the surface of the walls has been prepared, you can proceed to direct leveling.
Important: do not forget about electricity - you must first turn it off. And when cleaning the walls, act carefully so as not to damage the electrical wiring elements that are hidden in the wall.
For a strong fixing of the plaster, the walls must be primed. This process prevents extremely undesirable delamination of materials, and also increases moisture resistance. For cement mixtures, cement milk is used, consisting of cement, water and sand.
Installation of beacons before "wet" leveling with plaster
When wet leveling with plaster, it is best to use the “beacon” technology. It's special metal element made from flexible aluminium. The lighthouse is built into a curved wall, and it is along it that the subsequent alignment takes place. For greater clarity, we can give the following example: if the wall is littered at the top, then it can be understood that the lighthouse must be rested against the wall from below, and some material will be placed on top between the wall and the lighthouse, for example, a rotbant - it eliminates unevenness.
Beacon installation process
The installation of lighthouse rails begins with the installation of profiles on opposite walls. The verticality of each lighthouse is checked by a plumb line, and such profiles are mounted on the wall with building plaster. Gypsum is applied to the rail at several points while maintaining a distance of 50 cm. Then a cord is pulled through the lower, middle and upper profiles. The following rails are also mounted on the wall, but so that the cord barely touches them.
Important: the distance between the beacons is selected based on the size of the tool with which the plaster will be applied.
It is also possible to fix the beacons with self-tapping screws. This slows things down a bit, but then it makes it a lot easier. Even a non-professional can easily adjust the verticality of the lines by twisting or unscrewing the screws.
What is the best way to level a wall?
The leveling composition depends on the maximum thickness of the leveling layer, as well as on the type of binder - cement or gypsum. The cement mixture is most suitable for wet rooms (bathroom, kitchen), and it is desirable to use the gypsum composition in living rooms because it perfectly maintains the microclimate of the room.
Wet leveling
When the display of lighthouses is over, there is little left to do. Now you need to dilute 10-15 liters of plaster and apply it between the beacons. The mixture should have a certain consistency, it should not be too thin (will slip) and too thick (will be difficult to apply). If gypsum compositions are used in the work, then their quantity should be such that the mixture is worked out within an hour.
After applying the mixture, a rule of the required length is taken and pressed against the beacons, and then the surface is leveled with movements from the bottom up, or vice versa, whichever is more convenient for you. If in some places there was not enough mixture, then it is necessary to add it and again carry out the rule. These actions are repeated until the wall becomes perfectly flat.
When the applied layer of plaster dries, it will be possible to notice the roughness of the wall. For this reason, there is a need for its processing with finishing putty and grinding with fine sandpaper.
The advantages of this leveling method are that the useful area of \u200b\u200bthe room is not taken, and the disadvantages are that preliminary cleaning of the walls is necessary and this is a rather laborious process, after which a lot of debris and dust remain.
Plaster square - a device for forming ideal angles
A separate moment of the alignment process is the corners. How to align the corners of the walls, because these are the most problematic areas? It is advisable to use an angle trowel, level and other auxiliary tools in this work. Aligning corners is a painstaking task and requires experience and knowledge. For a faster setting of the mortar in the corners, you need to add a small amount of gypsum to the mixture.
How to eliminate significant irregularities?
How to level the walls in an apartment with large differences and terrible curvature of the walls? In this case, it is rational to resort to the installation of specific structures, followed by sheathing them with drywall. This method has the main drawback - “eating up” the usable area, but it is also characterized by positive aspects: there is no need for preliminary work, and inside the constructed frame, you can hide communications and lay sound and thermal insulation materials.
This method has the right to life. First, the frame is mounted, which is subsequently sheathed with drywall. It is possible to level the blockage, but still the blockage does not disappear anywhere, but simply hides under the skin. If the apartment is small, then such frauds will make the living space even smaller.
Preparing walls for wallpaper
If repairs have begun in the apartment, then the question will surely arise, how to align the walls under the wallpaper? Wallpaper and other decorative coverings require a smooth surface to be prepared.
If the irregularities are minor, you can safely treat the wall with ordinary putty. For this purpose, it is necessary to use a spatula, which is designed for jointing cracks and their subsequent puttying. The most convenient option is to use two medium-sized spatulas.
Perfectly smooth walls - a beautiful room
With a large amount of work, you can dilute the putty in the basin so as not to constantly jump up and down. And for small holes and crevices, a small vessel is used.
Important: if the volumes are still large, then it is better to dilute the mixture with a drill with a special nozzle.
And if the layer is thick, then the surface must first be treated with a starting putty. At right technology putty is applied in several stages, but only when the previous layer dries. Three layers are usually applied, the last one is the finishing putty to finish the job. Then the entire surface is cleaned with sandpaper.
The bathroom is no exception to the rule.
The most common cause in leveling the walls of the bathroom - a type of future finish. If it is a tile, then you need to know how to align the walls under the tile. It should be noted that working with tiles is a responsible and serious process that needs a competent approach, and uneven walls are no exception. So, before proceeding with the main process, you need to think about how to align the walls in the bathroom, adhering to the technology.
Laying ceramic tiles it is possible only on flat walls, because if you ignore this issue, the result can be disastrous: protrusion of masonry with bumps and spoiled appearance of the room. The most common alignment method is the same beacons.
Scheme for installing beacons for alignment
Walls with lighthouses are more durable, because after the completion of work they are not removed from the wall, but continue to support the plaster. When working with plaster angles, you can get excellent 90-degree angles.
The plaster is applied according to the principle of "throwing" the wall. For this purpose, it is advisable to use a trowel. A small area is covered at a time, and not the entire surface of the wall. After the mixture is applied, you need to give it time to dry, and then you can cut off the excess protruding parts of the solution that go beyond the beacons. Water is added to the cut solution and the following intervals are rubbed again.
Installation of beacons with gypsum mixture
After the plaster has dried, the walls are primed, and then the tiles are laid. The primer promotes better adhesion of the adhesive solution to the base.
There are options for leveling walls, knowing all the subtleties and tricks of this laborious process, you can achieve a good result. The work of a plasterer, a master of his craft, is based on a quality surface, plaster composition and accurate beacons.
Video instruction for leveling walls
If you still have questions and need to learn everything in detail about how to align the walls - a video example with well-written material should help.
The main thing is to strive for something better, and not live on the principle of "it will do." No, it won’t do, a person’s housing must be properly designed: with smooth walls, beautiful decor and suitable furniture. Living in a room with such conditions is much more comfortable than contemplating crooked corners and collapsed walls every day. Perfectly even walls are the norm to strive for, since neither high-quality wallpaper nor compositionally installed furniture will hide the curvature.
