Plasterboard and stud work

Once it is painted, every stud wall looks the same. The difference shows up the day you hang a television on it, the night you hear the other room through it, or the morning an inspector asks what its fire rating is. So we build it around those three questions. Framing first: metal studs are straight, fast, non combustible and right for most apartment and commercial work, timber studs are stronger for fixings and better where a wall carries something. Either way, noggins go in before boarding, at the height of the television, the radiator, the wall hung basin, the grab rail, the kitchen units. Putting them in afterwards means cutting the wall open. Sound is next, and it is the complaint we hear most about walls somebody else built. An empty stud wall is a drum. A wall filled with acoustic mineral wool, boarded with denser board or two layers, sealed with acoustic sealant top and bottom and at every edge, and with the sockets offset rather than back to back, is a different room to live in. For a separating wall in a converted house, or a bedroom off a hall, that costs very little extra at the build stage and cannot be bought afterwards. Fire and moisture finish the spec: a standard partition is single layer board, an escape route, a garage wall, a ceiling under a converted attic or an apartment wall often wants two layers with staggered joints for a sixty minute rating, and every service penetration through a rated wall has to be sealed back up. Bathrooms and utility rooms get moisture resistant board, and behind a tiled shower we use a tile backer board rather than trusting green board to hold up under a wet wall for twenty years.

Taped and jointed, or skimmed?

Taping and jointing fills and sands the joints only, so the wall is ready to paint in a day and there is no drying out time to wait through. It is the norm on commercial jobs and it is perfect under a matt finish. A full skim coat over the whole board gives a harder, more uniform face that takes a sheen or a strong side light better, and it is what most Irish houses expect. We will tell you which one suits the room, the lighting and the paint you have chosen, and price both if you want to compare.