Plaster patch turned into a two day project in the North Valley

I was fixing a crack by the kitchen window last Saturday, thought it was a quick skim coat job. Turns out the old plaster was loose behind the crack and the whole corner crumbled when I touched it. Anyone else deal with that older adobe-style plaster that just keeps flaking off no matter how much bonding agent you use?

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1 Comment

stella90419d ago

The 30 year old paint layer is what’s holding that mess together, not the plaster itself. Once you crack the surface, moisture gets behind the paint and the adobe underneath just turns to sand. I had the same thing happen near a bathroom vent in my place. The fix that actually stuck was scraping off every loose bit down to the solid base, then using a lime based render instead of the regular gypsum stuff. Bonding agent won’t do squat if the substrate is still moving. You gotta let it breathe, or it’ll just flake again next summer.