What to expect from GIB stoppers in Auckland when skimming walls

In this guide, we have given right procedures of skimming walls and what to expect when employing the services of GIB stoppers when skimming your house walls.

Wallpaper removal

If you have chosen to strip off the wallpaper from your house walls on your own, start by wetting the layers and leaving the water to soak into them. Also, make sure to use a large wet sponge or a wallpaper steamer which will speed up the entire process.

Experts suggest to first wet down the whole surface a couple of times. After this, use a scraper and peel off the paper in large pieces to save time. If you find it difficult to remove some layers that persistently refuse to move, you may leave them in place.

Moreover, those layers will be firmly stuck down and will be fixed enough to plaster over. Provided you should ensure to follow the right preparation procedures.

Before your GIB stopper comes and the process starts, you must ensure to prepare the area as follows:

1. Remove all the wall hangings, antique ornaments and other rare items out the room.
2. Remove all the electronic equipment’s out of the space in order to avoid any damage from dust.
3. Place all the large furniture in the centre of the room.
4. Cover the furniture with big cloth sheets in order to prevent them from dirt.
5. Approach the whole area at one time because breaking the whole job into smaller parts will increase your total time to complete the job.

Prepare the walls or ceilings for skim coating

Your GIB Stopper will first lightly sand the whole surface and take off all the debris. After this, he will cover the surface with a good quality oil based pigmented sealer (OBPS). The OBPS sealer is manufactured to strengthen the bond and stabilize the board sealing in all old adhesives. It also helps in preventing the compound from leaching out and reacting, after the skim coats have been applied. OBPS is made up of modified oils and is very aromatic when applied over the surface. That’s why, specialists suggest not to use the affected space during the process of skim coating.

Install steel slim lines to any external corners

After the surface preparation, your GIB stopper will install the steel slim lines to any corners that are bulging out into the room. Steel slim lines are manufactured and fitted to give a square look instead of a rounded corner profile or the conventional timber corner look.

Re-enforce the joins to avoid cracks

In order to prevent the plastered surface from cracking in the long term, it is best to use only a perforated reinforcing tape which is paper based rather than fibre re-enforcing tape. This tape is applied over the surface by using highly adhesive plasters to get a rigid bond. Make sure to hire a professional GIB Stopper which has the skill to use perforated paper tape. This is because many specialists use fibre tape to minimize the time taken and cost of labour. Fibre tape doesn’t create a good bond and because of increased failure rates it’s use is clearly against the New Zealand Standards (NZ25809:2007) and board supplier literature.

Use paper re-enforcing to redefine the internal corners

Professional GIB Stoppers always recommends to use paper tape to redefine and re-enforce the internal corners. This not only strengthens the internal corners, but also enhance the overall visual appeal of the room. If the framing or plasterboard in your room is considerably out of line, you can opt for straightening the line in order to conceal the defect. However, if you have an older house, its internal corners might be covered with a ¼ round corner bead which should be removed prior to the commencement of GIB Stoppers work.

Wall straightness

Some of the older houses also have various framing deviations. In order to rectify such farming deviations skim coating is very helpful to smoothen the texture of the surface. The process of wall Skimming does not create straight walls. But if there is a particular deviation that is not easily visible because of its size or shape, your specialist can help you to reduce its appearance.

Wall skimming

In the process of wall skimming, first coats are applied over the surface by using high adhesive compound. These types of compounds are very hard and strong. The second skims coating is done on the surface to repair any scratches in the nail holes or paper. This coat helps in determining whether the pin holes are present on the surface or not. In such cases, the additional coats are required to be applied over the affected areas. The last few skim coats may be used in an air drying compound and should sand the whole surface. After this, your specialist will again look for pinholes with a 500w halogen floodlights and sand them.

Halogen floodlight is particularly manufactured to figure out areas that are not easily discoverable. If the pinholes are visible after the last sand, it is best to seal the whole area.

Timeframe of wall skimming

The process of wall skimming is very time consuming as compared to GIB Stopping. It will usually take as long 3 to 4 times more to skim coat a wall as compared to the GIB stopping. Even if you need to skim coat a small surface, it will need several visits. Typically, it takes around one week for a crew to skim coat a single room and up to one and a half weeks to skim coat half a home or more. These time periods are somewhat good and allow the surface to dry properly.