Alignment of the walls in the bathroom under the tile: plaster or drywall (video)

To decorate the walls in the bathroom, many owners prefer to use ceramic tiles. It has many advantages: durability, strength, hygiene, beautiful appearance. However, the most beautiful and expensive material, the most outstanding design idea can be spoiled due to uneven ground. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out alignment of the walls in the bathroom under the tileotherwise, all efforts may be in vain. The quality of the preparatory work will certainly affect the durability and beauty of the walls, tiled.

Wall preparation

The process of leveling the walls under the tiles in new buildings and in old houses will be slightly different. First of all, by the fact that in a new apartment in most cases it will not be necessary to dismantle the old coating on the walls. But this is only if in the bathroom and toilet the walls were not finished at all. In any other situation, before aligning the walls in the bathroom, you will have to

remove old tile or paint.

In exceptional cases, if the old tile has a perfectly even surface, you can not remove it from the wall, but stick on a new tile from above. Of great importance here is the correct choice of adhesive for joining ceramic surfaces: a new layer can simply slip off the old base. But, as a rule, after several years of operation, the tile base acquires some minor defects, so it is better to get rid of it and align the walls under the tile again.

• Old tiles and mortar are removed from the walls using a hammer, hammer and chisel. It’s better to go from top to bottom. Otherwise, if the upper layers are attached loosely, they may collapse after removing the lower ones, which could result in personal injury. The chisel pry tiles on the wall in turn, the punch allows you to significantly speed up the dismantling process.
• At removing old paint from the walls it is most convenient to use a construction hairdryer. After warming up, it is easily cleaned with a spatula. Special flushing solutions can be used without forgetting the precautions.
• After the old tile is knocked down from the wall, it is necessary to carefully examine the resulting base. Old, poorly fixed plaster must be removed, and potholes should be repaired with mortar.

If the walls are concrete, then the stage of removing the old plaster is unlikely to cause difficulties, but it is almost impossible to remove it from wooden surfaces. In this case, it is easier to build a new partition, for example, from drywall.

• Small cracks and crevices on the wall first expand slightly, and then gently close up. For better adhesion of the old and new layers in these areas you need to make small notches.
• The same notches must subsequently be applied to the rest of the wall in order to improve the adhesion of the solution. This is especially true in reinforced concrete houses where surfaces are smooth. It is also necessary to treat the surface of the wall with a primer, which will not only improve adhesion, but also prevent moisture from the solution from seeping deep into the wall.

All these measures are necessary if the unevenness of the base does not exceed 6 cm, and it is planned to prepare the walls in the bathroom for tiles using plastering. With strongly curved walls, it is more advisable to use moisture-resistant drywall.

Determining the thickness of the plaster on the wall

To make the base for the tiles absolutely even, do not do without hanging before installing the beacons. To do this, you will need:

• plumb line;
• nails
• strong thread or twine;
• beacons - even rails made of wood or metal profile;
• special clamps for attaching beacons to a wall or quick-drying mortar based on gypsum or alabaster.

The technology is as follows:

• We drive in the carnations in the upper corner of the wall, leaving the head sticking out to the approximate thickness of the leveling mortar.
• Using a plumb line, the cord of which is attached to the hat of the nail just driven in, we drive in the nail at the bottom of the wall so that its hat also touches the cord.
• Repeat this procedure in the opposite corner of the wall.
• We connect all four nails with each other with a tightly stretched thread horizontally and crosswise.

In this way, you can determine the thickness of the plaster throughout the wall area. If the layer is too large or, conversely, somewhere the old surface will protrude beyond the plane of the stretched twine, then we make the necessary adjustment.

Installation of beacons on the wall

It is necessary to align the walls with tiles using beacons. This stage of work will look like this:

• After a certain distance on the wall, we install beacons from the profile. The extreme lighthouses should deviate from the corner by a distance of at least 10 cm.

The distance between adjacent profiles on the wall is best chosen so that it is slightly less than the length of the existing rule.

• Fix the beacons on the wall with heaps of quick-drying mortar or on plastic mounts.
• The profile is pressed into the solution, following the readings of the level and the plumb line and focusing on the previously stretched twine. In plastic fasteners, the necessary adjustment is performed by tightening the screws connecting the profile and the wall plug in the wall.
• After all the rails are installed, you must once again check that they are located in a single plane.

Solution preparation

When the beacons are securely fixed to the wall, you can begin to prepare the solution. How to align the walls in a humid room like a bathroom? Only with cement mortar, because gypsum mixtures are afraid of water. Masters prefer to prepare the plaster on their own, mixing cement with sand in a ratio of 1: 2 or 1: 3. But it is easier and faster for an amateur to use ready-made dry building mixes.

• First of all, you must carefully read the manufacturer's instructions. They are located on the outside of the bag.
• If the solution for leveling the wall is prepared from cement and sand, dry components are poured into the container and gradually add water, while stirring the solution with a construction mixer or drill with a special nozzle. In the case of using a dry plaster mixture, water is first poured, and plaster is already poured into it.

It is important not to overdo it with water: too thin a solution is inconvenient to use, the mixture will always slide off the trowel or along the wall. Subsequently, such a solution is subject to significant shrinkage. Ideally, the solution should be slightly thicker than thick sour cream.

It is necessary to expend the prepared plaster within half an hour, so you should not immediately pour the entire bag into the container. It is better to prepare a new portion after the finished solution is over.

After mixing, the solution must be allowed to stand a little. The time period is usually indicated in the manufacturer's instructions.

Application of the solution to the wall

How to align the walls under the tile? The process is as follows:

• The plaster is thrown into the space on the wall between the two beacons so that its surface protrudes slightly above the surface of the beacons. Usually, a trowel or wide spatula is used for this.

• Then a rule is taken, pressed tightly against the profiles, and the solution is leveled along the wall with undulating movements from the bottom up. Excesses are sent back to the mixing tank.
• Repeating this operation the required number of times, all the gaps between the beacons are filled. The latter are easier to leave in the walls, but if you want to use them again, the profiles are removed, and the voids are filled with plaster and leveled with a spatula.

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You can meet the recommendations to treat the surface that has not yet hardened with a grater, but this is necessary only before wallpapering. We are aligning the wall under the tile, so this operation can be skipped.

Aligning walls with drywall

How to align the walls in the bathroom if they have significant curvature? Plaster in this case is not suitable: its layer will be too large. Well for this purpose, moisture-proof drywall is suitable.

The way it is fixed may be different. You can build a familiar metal profile frame, and you can glue drywall directly to the wall with special glue. In the second case, the sequence of actions will be as follows:

• The wall is cleaned of contaminants and treated with a deep penetration primer.
• Plasterboard sheets of the right size are cut with an electric jigsaw.
• Fragments are glued to the wall from the bottom up. The glue is applied in separate piles. The correctness of the installation is controlled by the level and, if necessary, adjusted with a rubber hammer.
• After the glue has dried, the joints are sealed with silicone sealant and the usual finishing puttying of drywall with finely divided moisture-resistant putty.

The cost of aligning the walls in the bathroom

As you can see, it’s not necessary to hire professionals to prepare a quality base for tiles in the bathroom. It is quite possible to do it yourself. If you still decide to resort to the services of specialists, the prices for leveling the walls in the bathroom under the tile will be as follows:

• stucco walls on lighthouses in Moscow - from 300 rubles. per 1 m2, in St. Petersburg - from 280 rubles. per 1 m2;
• plasterboard sheathing using the frame method - from 500 rubles. per 1 m2 in Moscow and from 460 rubles. per 1 m2 in St. Petersburg;
• wall decoration with drywall for glue - from 350 rubles. per 1 m2 in the capital, from 320 rubles. per 1 m2 in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast.

In the regions of the Russian Federation, prices for such services vary in a fairly wide range.
Visually familiar with the process of aligning the walls in the bathroom under the tile will help viewing a selection of the best videos on the topic.