Repair hole in plaster wall

jesus_thats_gre

Hi Lads,

I accidently made a small hole in a plaster board wall in my place. The hole is about 4 inches across and 3 inches high. The plaster board was basically pushed in with one side of the whole still fully attached to the wall (sort of a hinge).

What is the best way to fix this. Apologies if my description is not clear. The hole is about 1 foot from the ground and is under/behind a desk sort of.

Salem

1 option ...

Cut a piece of plasterboard large enough to cover the hole, but small enough to be fed through the hole at an angle. Make a hole through the board and secure a string to it with the aid of an old nail. Paste its edges with Polyfiller or something similiar and pass it through the hole – keep hold of the string. Pull it back to stick against the inside of the hole. Allow to dry before cutting the string. Now fill the recess with filler in 1 or maybe 2 layers ...
When dry sand with fine paper .. Ready for a lick of paint ...

Kashkai

You've got two options:

1. Fill the hole with newspaper and add some polyfilla in layers until it is up to the surface of the wall.

2. Put a screw into the loose bit of plasterboard and pull it back out towards you. Seal around the edges with polyfilla to "glue" it back into place. When this is hard, remove the screw.

GreeBo

or rather than the newspaper trick get some expanding foam "no more big gaps" and partially fill the hole until you have maybe a 1cm deep hole, then fill that with polyfilla or plaster or whatever you want as your finish coat.
You will not be able to fill more than about 1cm in one go as it will take too long to dry and will keep falling out.

Be careful if using the foam for the first time, it expands like a mother.

jesus_thats_gre

Any particular brands/products that ye would recommend, i.e. to provide support behind and then to actully plaster or whetever the final bit.

GreeBo

any foam will do really, dont buy too big a can, its pretty much a once off use as it will block itself after a day or two

pollyfilla will be fine

neanderthal

You'll think I'm verbose but I just typed this out for someone else and I can paste it here too. It's a bit long
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Just a note, having done enough house surgery over the years I can share a tip.
To repair the holes in the walls:
1 - Maybe use a holesaw to make a hole big enough to get your hand into the cavity.

2 - Keep the circular cutout

3 - When repairing the hole use small pieces of wood or plaster board and insert them longways through the hole with dabs of glue already on them and pull them back so the dabs of glue adhere to the reverse surface of the plasterboard you are repairing. If the pieces are heavy on the fresh glue use a screw to hold them squeezed forward with another piece of wood on the outside until the glue sets.

Things like wooden rulers work great.

4 - Now with some filler as glue replace the exact same circular cutout as you previously removed. Wipe off the excess and you might not even need to paint it.