Home Improvement Question

[plumtreeblossom]

I have a hole in the wall and a fresh container of spackling. Is it permissable to cover the hole with gaffer's tape and spackle over the tape? Or must I fill in the hole, which would be uber difficult given that the hole leads to the hollow inside of the wall? (The hole is near the floor in the bathroom, and I don't mind if the patching is ugly.)

Comments

[eclecticavatar.livejournal.com]

You can just spackle it without the tape, assuming that the hole isn't super deep. You won't have to fill it completely in.

[kalliejenn2.livejournal.com]

they have special mesh stuff for patching super-deep holes in the wall that i bet tags would have. i wouldn't use gaffer's tape only because it will look craptastic and also may not hold the spackle.

[zzbottom.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The mesh has an adhesive quality to it, plus it allows the spackle to ooze through and provide some depth to the patch.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I think I'll got to Tags and see if they have that mesh. Thanks, all!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

They're very helpful there, in my experience.

How large is the hole? If it's really large, you might need a piece of drywall. Is there a stud of any sorts under the hole? Or is it just hollow?

I wouldn't use tape of any sorts. The plaster won't set right and it will just fall off in short order :(

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

You need plastering mesh. It's a wire mesh, you cut it to about the right size for the hole, jam it in there, and then spackle over the mesh.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I'd be afraid that the tape would lose it's stickiness over the course of a few months and make an even bigger mess when it fell off. The mesh sounds like the right thing.

Alternatives

[terryo.livejournal.com]

If he hole is small (say less than an inch diameter you can get away with a 2 or 3 step fill; the first is basically to just decrease the size of the hole and depth of the hole, final one to bring the surface level.
If it is bigger, (say up to 2" in diameter), you might get away with doing the above with the mesh tape mentioned by others; you can also cram some of he wadded up mesh into the hole with a mess of spackle to fill in.
A bit bigger, you take a piece of stiff cardboard with a string or wire and fit it into the hole so that it provides a backing (think longish skinny piece; slide it into the hole longways, then let it flip and hold it up against the backside of the hole while you fill in the hole with spackle. (if you are being cute, you can put some glue on the cardboard to hold it in place so you don't have to hold it with the string....:D)
if it is above 4" or so, I would really recommend fitting in the piece of drywall as someone else suggested, then patching the edges of that.

One thing to keep in mind is to keep the spackle coats fairly thin; If you try to put in a too thick of a blob, it will crack as it dries; so lots of thin coats is best.

FWIW

Terry

Re: Alternatives

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

But, but, but...that would be WORK! :-)

[mrpet.livejournal.com]

is the place your's or someone elses ;)

Never fill in a big hole with spackle, it will shrink as it dries and crack out.

not your house)
If the hole goes through to an open space, jam in paper towels/other bulk until the hole is filled in tightly just below the surface. Put in the mesh and apply joint coumpound (not spackle) until you feather it out so that you cannot see the mesh and the joint coumpound oozes around the mesh and gets into the towels. Spackle is for small holes and cracks and contains plasticizers that will not allow you to skim coat (it will delaminate and flake off)

Your house)
if the hole goes through to an opening then you should get a hole saw and cut out a bigger square hole so that you can fit a small board through the hole. Using drywall screws screw through the wall and into the board so that you now have a flat surface just under the drywall to attach the patch. Now cut our a piece of new drywall the size of the hole and scree it to the board. Now that you have a sturdy surface to work with you need to get some joint compound into the crack and place a piece of joint tape over the edges of the patch. Now skim coat over the paper tape. This is smoother since you do not need to hide the rough mesh.

If the hole is shallow and is in horsehair plaster, stop, no really stop, and be careful. You cannot patch it like it was drywall and anything you will do to prepare it will cause it to crumble. saturate the area with a thinned down Elmer's Glue (PVA) solution to seal the crumbling plaster and wait until it dries. Fill the hole with thin layers of joint coumpound until each is dry. Once you get it flush with the surface skim a light coat over the entire area and "glue" a piece of heavy paper over the entire hole by pressing it into the skim coat. Now skim coat over the entire area until it is flat.

Spackle is almost never the answer to filling in anything bigger than small cracks and nail holes.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

It's in my house. The hole is about the size of a deck of cards, in the horsehair plaster of the bathroom wall right next to the shower. Ordinarily I would just leave it (we have plenty more holes like it elsewhere in the house), but water from the shower is getting into the hole and dripping down through my neighbor's bathroom ceiling. The gaff tape on the hole now is keeping the water out, but I told my landlord I would just spackle it, so he went out and bought me some spackle. My original half-assed plan was to just spread some spackle over the tape and call the job done, but that was because I've never really spackled before.

Oy, this is going to be an adventure...

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

By "your" and "not your", he was referring to ownership, silly. :)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

See, I wouldn't even have thought of that. :-)

[mrpet.livejournal.com]

If you have a landlord then it's not your house :) Spackle is the abolute wrong way to fix it if it were _your_ property. If he gave you the spackle then by all means mess up his property since he doesn't know how to take care if it *evil grin*

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Mare has an absentee landlord who doesn't seem to care that he is destroying his house with neglect, so indeed, I'd totally support the cheapest, easiest method, half-assed though it may be.

But remind me never to rent to you. ;)

[muffyjo]

If it's a large hole (you can stick your body through it) you can try that method. Otherwise, you may want something slightly less extensive or if it's really small, just go for the fiberglass tape and patch over it.