What is the best plaster for walls in an apartment?

Before starting renovation work, it is very important to develop a design project that takes into account your needs. Despite the seeming additional costs, in the future it will save time, effort and money, already at the initial stage you will know the exact amount of roughing and finishing materials. The design project of the apartment allows you to think through a lot of little things and make the space more ergonomic. According to the ready-made plan, the repairmen will make much fewer mistakes, and it will be easier for you to control their work.

One of the main steps for preparing walls for decoration is wall alignment. You can level the walls using different methods, but one of the most popular is plastering. For a high-quality result, you need to choose a good composition that will be convenient to work with. The choice of plaster is a matter that requires a thorough approach, from analyzing the composition to assessing the ease of application and cost.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Any mixture consists of the main binder component, sand of different fractions and additives. But the choice is not made only on the basis of the composition. By the way, it is worth starting with the fact that plaster and putty are often confused. These processes are really similar and are directly related to the alignment of the walls.

If the curvature of the walls or ceiling is significant, and the differences are at least 5 mm, then after applying the plaster layer, the surface will be grainy. To remove this graininess, it needs to be smoothed out. This is what the putty helps, the limiting layer of which can be 5 mm, but the plaster can be up to 70 mm thick.

Here are the main questions that will guide you in choosing a plaster mix.

• Why it is purchased. If a rough finish is performed, the material will be one, if the finish is finished, it will be different. For example, decorative properties of the composition are important for finishing.
• What finish will be after plastering the walls. The choice of composition also depends on whether it is a tile or painting, maybe wallpaper.
• How much are you willing to spend on this part of the repair. The price fork can be rather big.

Each plaster mix has its own texture. To see how the surface will look after such processing, it is better not in the photo on the Internet, but on the samples in the building market - so it is clearer. For example, cement-based mixtures are often used to create the popular "bark beetle" or "fur coat" texture.

It is imperative to evaluate the weight of the mixture and the characteristics of the walls of the room. If it is a thin block wall, it will need a light mix. And the type of surface where the composition will be applied is also important. If it is not chosen according to the type, good adhesion will not work, and after drying everything will simply collapse. And measurements also need to be done in advance - we mean measurements of the deflection of the walls.

The filler in the mixture is often sand. Additives are needed to give the plaster the qualities necessary for operation. But the main determinant of the composition is still the binder. According to it, they usually decide what kind of plaster to finish concrete walls.

• Cement. Cement plaster is distinguished by its high strength. She is not afraid of moisture, and therefore more often she is still bought for processing plinths and facades.But also the walls in rooms where the humidity indicators are unstable, or it is very high, it is better to finish it with a cement mixture.
• Gypsum. Gypsum plaster, which is not labeled as "moisture resistant", can only be used inside heated dry rooms. Alas, it easily picks up moisture directly from the air, after which it swells, and its layers begin to move away from the wall.
• Polymer. Such a composition can be safely considered universal. It is suitable for both indoor and outdoor use, it can be applied to surfaces of any material. True, for a rough alignment, you can find a better option, because the polymer plaster is applied in too thin a layer, you will have to spend a lot.
• Clay. It lost its former popularity, earlier the material was very accessible, and it was possible to make the composition yourself. But its competition was made by more convenient and perfect materials. Therefore, clay mixtures are rarely used today, and if they are plastered with them, it is not walls, but brick stoves and wooden utility rooms. True, if you want to maintain eco-style, then decorative clay-based plaster is quite an authentic, interesting material. But it will be difficult for a beginner to work with it.
• Lime. Also not an option that can be considered relevant. Lime plaster can be used to level walls in rooms with very high humidity or where heating is excluded. In a word, where a lot of mold can appear. But such a finish cannot be called durable.

However, the listed options are definitely enough so as not to feel the limited choice.

In this regard, plaster assumes 3 options - homemade composition, dry mix and paste.

They differ from each other:

• homemade composition prepared from separately taken components, which are mixed in strictly specified proportions according to the instructions;
• dry mix packaged in paper bags, and must be diluted with water before use;
• paste sold in plastic buckets, it can be used immediately.

It is logical that the least hassle with the paste, it can be opened and applied immediately. But you will have to pay extra for such convenience. You can use a dry mixture, because it costs less than paste, and it is not so difficult to dilute it, the instructions on the package are usually understandable even for a “teapot”. Homemade plaster will be the cheapest, but the mixing process is quite laborious. And if you mess up with the proportions, mix it incorrectly, the entire repair may be a failure.

And also it is worth mentioning separately the so-called dry plaster. These are gypsum sheet materials, which, as a rule, have a cardboard shell. They are optimal for aligning walls with significant irregularities, level drops. They are also convenient in that you do not have to interrupt the repair while the plaster compounds dry.

For those who will be plastering walls for the first time, this parameter may be perhaps the most important. Because if the process is uncomfortable, mistakes can be made, and the repair will obviously not please. And what could be worse than a situation when, after a failed self-repair, you have to call the masters to fix it. The huge overpayment is only one drawback of this experience. Therefore, the best option for beginners is precisely a plastic solution that adheres perfectly to any type of surface and is easily smoothed on it. So, take a closer look at polymer plasters will not be superfluous, this is the same option. True, they are not cheap. It turns out, on the one hand, the ease of application is high, on the other hand, the price does not give the right to make a mistake.

Gypsum plaster is also distinguished by good plasticity. But the solution will set very quickly, which may come as a surprise to a beginner. After half an hour, somewhere the solution thickens, becomes completely unusable.Therefore, it is prepared in portions, and this, unfortunately, slows down the pace of work. But the gypsum plaster dries very quickly, so there will be no need to wait long before the next stage of the repair. Dried up - and you can glue the wallpaper, for example, not after a couple of days, but much faster.

Cement plaster mixes are considered less comfortable material from the point of view of application. This is a heavy composition with very low plasticity, and it is also difficult to smooth it. In order to somehow neutralize this level of plasticity, lime can be added to it.

Here it’s worth saying right away: comparing just numbers is a big mistake. Because the cost includes not only the technological formula, finished look, durability, but also many other aspects. If the repair does not allow delays, and long technical breaks are not possible, you will not save money and buy those mixtures that dry very quickly. And you can simply calculate the real consumption.

For example, in order to seal a solution from a dry mixture of cement or gypsum, you need to understand how much of the finished composition will turn out. That is, for the same amount of dry material, less water will be spent on cement, and in the finished form, the gypsum composition will turn out to be more. Moreover, the consumption of gypsum plaster is always less than that of cement. It turns out that although the initial price of the cement mixture and the gypsum mixture is not the same, in the end, taking into account the number of purchased packages for the same surface area, the amounts will become equal.

With polymer compositions, it is completely different, they are in many ways more convenient than their more archaic predecessors. But they are much more expensive. The least mistakes occur with them, it is easier for beginners to work with polymer mixtures, but the price of such comfort is high. Therefore, when choosing a mixture for the price, you need to evaluate the time that is given for repairs, the level of experience and much more.

Perhaps you have to choose not from standard options, but from special mixtures. There are those too. For example, acid-resistant formulations. They are used to treat walls in industries that are characterized by aggressive chemical fumes. But this option is also possible in your apartments, however, already as a decorative finish layer. Such a plaster is not afraid of chemical attack and is very unpretentious in leaving. And there are also compounds with X-ray protection, however, at home such a barite mixture is almost never used.

If you follow the classic recommendations, you get the following.

• Masonry plaster - it is almost always a cement composition. In this way, a layer of sufficient thickness can be created on the wall, which will hide all the drops and problem areas. And before work, the surface is necessarily wetted. If this is foam concrete as a base, cement mortar is used on a par with gypsum.
• Wet rooms also require cement, and better - polymer plaster.
• In the bedroom, hallway, living room (that is, conventionally "elegant" rooms and spaces) most often decorate the walls with plaster compositions. True, the strength of such a material is not that very high. And if the wall is constantly experiencing mechanical stress, it is better to refuse gypsum plaster in favor of cement or polymer.
• Balcony, loggia and bathrooms also require the use of cement compositions. As well as the slopes outside, for example.

And you can also focus on the data of the comparative table when choosing the best option.

According to many properties, cement plaster becomes the leader in the analysis. For leveling walls, this is a classic material, and even with the conditions that the walls should be moisture resistant and not afraid of mechanical stress. But working with it is not the easiest experience, however, and this problem can be reduced by introducing plasticizing additives or simple lime into the composition. The main disadvantage of the cement composition is that it will not let the walls "breathe". And if you want an optimal microclimate in the room, you will have to buy gypsum plaster. But it is not as durable as we would like.

That is why the question of buying a plaster composition is so controversial. But there would be a choice, and already a decision, after weighing all the pros and cons, current conditions, a person will surely find. And it will definitely be an individual approach.