u/thunderin_cunt

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The plasterer whose team did the work have run away with their tail between their legs and will not come back answer our contractor or our engineer.

Our engineer came to do a report, but was incredibly quick, didn't check for hollow patches and is good friends with the contractor and has been friends with the plasterer.....so any advice would be very much appreciated.

Feels like he isn't working for us at the moment to be honest.

We have had another plasterer look at it for us to see what he thought, no skin in the game so knew he would offer his own opinion on the matter. He felt it was applied in one skim, not two, and was overworked to try and get a finish on it. So anyone who can offer any input is very much appreciated.

Have another guy who offered to have a a look for us this week too.

The electricians passed comment on the plaster being very crumbly when they were working. We had a lot of holes left around sockets/switches.

Our contractor insisted we prime the entirety of the house after we raised the issue on the first wall.

Products we know that were used:

•baumit

•thistle bond -multifinish

• thistle bond - bonding coat

Completed in 2 days by a team of 3, one labourer and 2 guys skimming. 70sqm house.

Includes 3m high ceiling in one room, with 7 rooms, lots of little ins and outs.

Our house was skimmed over sand and cement the end of January.

Been well ventilated and was moisture tested prior to applying anything to the surface, tested by the contractor for us.

Prior to priming the walls with a primer designed for bare plastered we had consistently noticed unusual patches on the skim. Some looked almost like finger marks as if someone had run their hands in a wavy pattern , some looked like scratches, and some patches were intensely shiny, others very chalky.

Since priming, have areas will not absorb, although entirely dry. Raised patches were the very shiny patches were. The areas that looked like finger marks are clearly bow the devil float marks coming through. The have matched them off photos of the scratch coat.

The scratchy marks are very clearly brush bristle marks.

There are areas when tapped you can hear hollow areas. Some of which have cracked.

Cracks are widening even with ventilation to prevent heat build up in the house. There have been some small chunks that have fell off in the last few days too.

All the corner beading has oxidised and rusted, and the mesh grid of the beading is visible and can be felt by touch through the skim.

So many of the screws in the timbers have been exposed as the plaster put over them has popped out too.

The patches are consistent through the entire house.

They have tried to blame EVERYTHING under the sun. Began with the primer, but they have all agreed the primer isn't the issue. Tried to say it was an alkali issue. Having researched this, it can't be that, also doesn't present this way. We even tested plaster dust after reading up how to and it is testing neutral.

When the plasterer did initially pretend he cared and would fix it the kept mentioning how it was definitely two skim coats and not one (when we had no mention or information at the time that it possibly wasn't, which feels very much like a "if we say it enough they'll believe us")

All the research we did when this first came to light around 3months back has pointed towards poor application. Which upon reading up points to excessive cracking, brittle skim, the patches keep coming through even after sanding/painting and even delamination.

Right now it feels like we are possibly facing all those things when everything gets added in.

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Has anyone got examples of alkali reactions on thistle bond multifinish skim??

Having issues and they're trying to pin it on an alkali reaction over poor workmanship but it isn't adding up. Finding it very difficult to find photos of this particular issue online.

Also, is it ever acceptable to see devil float marks and beading grid through the skim? As you can see in the images below.

The walls were thoroughly dried, had months of ventilation before painting, this photo from an earlier just shows the line up of marks well. These dark patches remained very shiny even though the colour evened out, and were visible when dry

Primer is designed for raw plaster and all guidelines were followed. All marks were visible before priming as well as after. It just won't absorb. The patches that have no taken are also raised.

Any opinions welcome.

looking for as much information/opinions from professionals as possible.

Mapping on every wall! Long post, so apologies in advance, at a bit of a loss , the job just feels bad and any help would be amazing.

So, our build was skimmed over sand cement back in January (3guys, 2days 70sq m. Block build, excluding two small stud walls) immediately we thought the surface looked unusual.

Kept the house well ventilated (naturally, open windows/doors continously), and once possible, the underfloor heating was hooked up to a temporary gas boiler to get gentle heat in the place and dry out the floor thoroughly for tiling. Once tiling was completed we began painting, with a primer designed for raw plaster, good stuff, followed directions. Immediately seen patches appear.

Builder told us to prime entirety of the house to highlight mapped areas.

Some back story. Our home is the 4th in a row that these plasterers have worked on for this builder that have had mapping. Ours is worst affected. Our builder changed materials in order to try and avoid it, on guidelines from the manufacturer & plasterer to rule out a chemical reaction. Patches were visible before painting, so not a paint issue, just more evident. Severe uneven patches and adhesion issues with primer.

Due to the extent the plasterer finally came back to check it over and tried to blame it on everything else possible, and tried to scoot over the overtrowelling possibility....but has accepted it's his issue.

In less than a week his proposed fixes have been

• sand the walls, let us reprime and assess.

• sand our primed walls where impacted, get us to prime again, he'd airless plaster & finish, we prime again, then paint (agreed on this)

• get us to paint on 1 coat on the entirety of the house which has already been primed, then he'll flush fill and we then paint 2 coats. (randomly changed the plan to this without informing us)

*all of these allowing a few days between coats for absorption

Now, he said he thought a cost of paint on top of our primer would remove a lot of the patchiness and level out the uneven bits. However, all the paint is doing is highlighting how uneven the surface is and making the patches jump out more with extreme colour variation (bright yellow with dark brown/grey patches, doesn't show the colour variation very well in the picture).

We also have primer delamination on wall that was a guinea pig for sanding (60 grit, dry wall sander): areas were primed once/sanded and reprimed and, and another area that was not sanded at all. Which has us incredibly nervous.

Have tried two coats of primer per paint companies advice, lipping go worse.

Two houses on the build, both impacted.

Has anyone any advice or guidance for us trying to figure out what direction things need to go to fix this. I fear paint and sanding alone isn't fixing this. The walls are so uneven, and it feels like the plasterer is clutching at straws and also not wanting to hit his pocket too hard to fix something he admits is their issue.

Picture attached: white- one coat primer

Yellow, one coat primer, one coat paint.