Thread: Installing skirting boards to a brick wall

Originally Posted by david.elliott

MUST be MR. Just for fun I left an offcut outside for a few weeks last year in the rain. No discernable swell, although it was wet through...

I'm not so good on abbreviations. Is MR = marine rating? If so, it could have been expensive.

Originally Posted by ErrolFlynn

I'm not so good on abbreviations. Is MR = marine rating? If so, it could have been expensive.

Moisture Resistant

Originally Posted by tonzeyd

yes, brad nails, the small ones used in trim work. Yes nails are used to hold to wall till liquid nails took hold. When driving in nails, i set the gun so it deliberately sinks the nail slightly below the surface. Once set, nails are puttied and painted.

OK, but why bother with the liquid nails then? If the brads are sufficient to hold the skirt to the wall while the liquid nails dries, then they ought to be sufficient to hold the skirt in place indefinitely. My skirts are only bradded to the walls and haven't moved in 20 years.

The problem is there's not enough penetration into the brickwork with standard brads. You can purchase concrete brads, I explored this when re-installing my daughters skirting, but they are not held in stock, so far as I could find in WA, and the minimum order (2000?) was expensive.

Last time I looked the MRMDF was still quite a bit cheaper then FJ Pine in skirting, ans came in 5.2m lengths, but now, who knows..

Originally Posted by david.elliott

The problem is there's not enough penetration into the brickwork with standard brads.

I doubt there's ANY penetration by a brad into brick. To clarify my view- you use spaghetti and nails to secure skirts to brick and brads to secure skirts to timber. In neither case is liquid nails required.

Just had to do some skirting for a customer, on the cheap getting ready for sale, so not prepared to pay the time to drill and nail. I did manage to get most of the 35mm C brads into the white set and render to hold while glue dried. Sometimes I was lucky and hit the mortar course. When some brad was left out I trimmed with sidecutters and nail punched the rest down then filled.

Originally Posted by ErrolFlynn

I have some buggered (termite damage) skirting boards on the wall. I’ve never installed skirting before. The existing boards are timber with a bull-nose profile. The walls are brick. Old place – built 30 to 50 years ago. One small section of the wall doesn’t exist as yet – brickie is coming in next week.

Bricks next week is your first problem. Fresh mortar = damp until dry (No, I don't know how long it will take to dry enough, but think in many weeks if not some months at least) = timber whether natural or man made like MDF may - probably will - swell and later contract and be out of shape when everything is dry. Don't even think about using water sponge MDF for this.

Originally Posted by ErrolFlynn

I suspect I’ll be okay with mitre joints.

Maybe not. If you're going to pull skirts into the wall to follow it out of a straight line you're going to open your external mitres unless you cut them to allow for pulled skirts. If you have internal mitres you're better off with scribed joints as they can accommodate movement. scribed joint on skirting board - Google Search If you're not too good with or don't have a coping saw as in the video you can do it with a thin wood scrolling blade on a jig saw. If cost is no object you could buy a Collins Foot to replace the standard flat foot on your jig saw as it's a bit better for this type of work, but for a small job as a new user it'll probably create more problems for you than it solves with its ability to follow changing shapes. I have one I could probably sell you if I could be bothered to find it after being somewhat disappointed with its supposedly brilliant performance in these situations.

Originally Posted by ErrolFlynn

I was thinking MDF only because it doesn’t warp.

MDF is stable in average steady dry atmosphere, but it sucks up moisture like a whale if you have it against an available source like fresh mortar or more slowly from even seemingly dry bricks that are siphoning up tiny amounts of moisture from your slab or piers.

Originally Posted by ErrolFlynn

And if the wall wasn’t straight I’d use more screws and rawlplugs to pull it in. When happy with the appearance I was going to take it off, slap some glue on, then screw it back.

Ditto what I said about opening your external mitres. Glue is unnecessary, unless you have future movement in the bricks that you screw into. If you're going to use an adhesive you need one that bridges gaps, so get the appropriate version of Liquid Nails or similar.

Originally Posted by ErrolFlynn

Am I off the rails with this? I'm not going to nail into brick - I'm not that good with a hammer.

There are fixings that are probably easier to nail into brick than screw into plugs. Just a moment... Plus it's easier to fill over nail holes than screw holes and the smaller the fill the less they pop when painted over and the less touch up sanding required.

The primary issue that hasn't been addressed isn't how to fix the skirt to the brick but what brick you're putting the fasteners into. If they're hollow brick you're better off fixing into the mortar instead of punching into a thin brick wall with a hole behind it. And how do you know if they're hollow brick? If the house is 30 or less years old and not built by someone with lots of money, they'll be hollow brick, in Victoria anyway. They might be solid brick at 50 years old. As a very rough guide, the younger the house is over the last 40-50 years, the more hollows the bricks will have in them. If you want to know how frequent and thin the hollow walls are, just drill along a horizontal line in a course of bricks at about 20mm intervals.

If the brick wall deviates from straight by only a few millimetres in places, it would be much simpler to fit the skirt at the high points with fixings or adhesive and fill the gaps with No More Gaps or similar, which is what usually happens in new builds and renovations when skirts are a bit out on plasterboard.

This all assumes that you've dealt with the termites.

Originally Posted by jack620

I doubt there's ANY penetration by a brad into brick.

Purely on the basis that for many years until now I thought they were just for using on timber (apart from the specialised thin steel ones), I haven't tried using my Paslode bradder or framer or an equivalent air nailer, or even my crappy old battery bradders, into brick. But it sounds like a good experiment for a callous uninsured employer to try with an unsuspecting apprentice. Probably best not to video the experiment as it could be unwanted evidence in the ensuing legal proceedings.

Originally Posted by jack620

OK, but why bother with the liquid nails then? If the brads are sufficient to hold the skirt to the wall while the liquid nails dries, then they ought to be sufficient to hold the skirt in place indefinitely. My skirts are only bradded to the walls and haven't moved in 20 years.

Makes sense to me. But I'm a bit old school in being satisfied with a tight nail fix.

Which on skirts and other trim I tend to do with opposite angles on alternate brads, to resist pull out.

Originally Posted by david.elliott

use it all the time with MR MDF skirting. MUST be MR. Just for fun I left an offcut outside for a few weeks last year in the rain. No discernable swell, although it was wet through...

I'm not disputing your short term experiment, but my experience in dealing with / removing / repairing water damaged old mdf skirts and other MDF / MR MDF and HMR particle board is that in long term wet or just faintly damp environments such as bench or vanity tops moisture resistant [NOT moisture proof] MDF and particle board don't hold up anywhere near as well as properly coated hardwood when the moisture problem has been going on for years and even decades.

Unlike trades who install new stuff with confidence about what the supplier says it will do, my work was often fixing up failures many years later. That's not to say that the original manufacturer or installer assurances were wrong, but 10 or 20 or 30 years later the product failed and generally the man made products, despite the massive amounts of chemicals and glues in them, didn't hold up to natural timbers.

Originally Posted by 419

If they're hollow brick you're better off fixing into the mortar instead of punching into a thin brick wall with a hole behind it. And how do you know if they're hollow brick? I

You've made some excellent points. A lot to consider, thank you. I had thought of the holes in brickwork. I've had that experience before, in other places. Annoying. I was planning on carefully noting/marking places to drill before I got started. Bricks are solid at their periphery. Therefore, if I know where the mortar is, and drill about 10mm to either side I'll probably hit something solid.

The new brickwork You make a good point regarding moisture. I was considering leaving that section for another reason. And glue might be the best choice (when the brickwork dries). There will only be two courses of bricks. I've had an aluminium window fitted. The brickie (not here yet - got sick) will soon place the bricks under the window. So, there will be little strength in them, even when dry. My experience is that much of the strength of a brick wall comes from what's above resting on top of it (ie. the roof). No hammer will come near that section. Glue.

Originally Posted by ErrolFlynn

You've made some excellent points. A lot to consider, thank you. I had thought of the holes in brickwork. I've had that experience before, in other places. Annoying. I was planning on carefully noting/marking places to drill before I got started. Bricks are solid at their periphery. Therefore, if I know where the mortar is, and drill about 10mm to either side I'll probably hit something solid.

Yeah, I've tried that with a brick known to be the same as the ones in the wall. It works more or less okay if there's only a few holes along the face of the brick and plenty of meat between the holes, but it gets progressively less effective the more holes there are as there's less meat between the holes and at the ends. It's easy to end up drilling into a void that's too thin on the face of the brick to hold any fastener. At least with what you're doing that won't matter as you can cover up any unwanted holes with the skirt.

I was surprised by how difficult it was to tackle skirting boards. Though, I won’t hesitate, as I did before starting this task, next time. I almost called a carpenter. The whole affair has been quite a learning experience, for sure. I’ll relate some of my troubles should anyone be in my situation. That is, new to the process.

My job was one room, only. Three walls. There was a fitted wardrobe on the 4^th wall. It was a small room. So, I was able, and wanted to, use a single length of board on each wall.

I have a mitre saw. It’s a GMC that I bought from Bunnings over 20 years ago. It wasn’t the cheapest, but pretty close to it. Actually, it has served me well throughout that time. It has the original blade and still cuts well.

While considering my mitre saw, its limitations were one of my problems. I mitre cut the skirting. There are other methods, but considering I had the saw decided to cut mitre joints. Perhaps I shouldn't have. The saw has a range between 0 to 45 degrees in one direction. At one point I was wishing it could have had a range between 45 to 0 to 45 degrees. Though, not a huge problem. You just need to flip the board upside down to get the desired angle. You just have to be very careful of what and how you are cutting things. Though, I found that the saw cut very cleanly, though sometimes it chipped off little bits of wood which was going to ruin the appearance. Going slowly helped prevent that.

The real problem with this saw was that 45 degrees was the maximum the machine would tilt. I really needed more. Maybe up to 50 degrees. Using packing may have done the trick but it would have been a dodgy method. I didn’t try.

Had the room been built square? That is, with corners having right-angles (ie. 90 degrees) setting the saw at 45 degrees would have resulted in a perfect mitre (in theory). However, two of the corners in my room must have been at angles more like 95 degrees. Maybe more. I don’t know. The result was that when the two pieces of skirting were in place I have a gap because the angle wasn’t cut correctly. Possibly, the more expensive mitre saws extend past 45 degrees. I must look out for that aspect if I need to buy a replacement machine. So, for me, this is a job for some wood filler.

I bought some spaghetti. Thanks for suggesting it. And thanks Hodgo for suggesting pulling out, snipping, then pushing back in. I might have done this, but your tip was welcomed and utilised on the first attempt. Nice. I’m now a fan of spaghetti.

I screwed the boards rather than nailing them. Which was just as well because I had to remove two of them and refit. Removing the boards with the spaghetti running into the brickwork and skirting made for difficult removal, particularly with the carpet in place, but not impossible. The task certainly would have been impossible had I used nails.

The spaghetti was a Ramset product. The pack stated hole dia 5.5mm (that was spot on). The pack instructions advised using a 3.75 mm min dia nail (they are huge and I have to wonder if that was a misprint), or a 6 gauge max screw size (wrong, they should have said 7 gauge). I bought some 6 gauge and tested it out by drilling into an old brick I had lying around to fix a scrap piece of wood. I was able to pull the wood away from the brick with minimum effort. When I used the 7 gauge screw the board held firmly. The lesson here: don’t rely on the written instructions. I’m inclined to write to Ramset telling them of their lousy instructions.

So, why was I removing the boards?

The first board down had to match an existing board that was going to remain in place, that had been mitre cut. This wall wasn’t at 90 degrees. Something like 160 degrees, actually. Unusual, I know. Finding the correct angle was a process of using a scrap piece of wood and cutting it on the mitre saw, checking the fit against the existing skirting, re-cutting at a slightly different angle, and rechecking, over and over until the angle looked perfect. When I was happy I cut my skirting board at the same angle, assured that it would fit. And that worked out perfectly. Using scrap like this is a great way to check things. The tricky bit was to follow.

How long would this board be? So I measured the distance, added a bit, and then cut the board a little longer than I’d measured. I assumed the corner of the room was at a right-angle, and set my mitre saw at 45 deg and cut it. Try the fit: too long (of course). Trim a bit more (a tiny amount) off the board, test in the room, cut a bit more, test, cut, test, cut. This is tedious, but eventually, the board slipped into position. I screwed it in position. Happy with a job done well. Wrong!

So, what went wrong? Well, when I cut the next board that was meant to meet up with the first I found that one edge wasn’t meeting particularly well. And why not? I could see that the corner of the first board was positioned neatly into the extreme corner of the brickwork. However, what I didn’t consider was that the bricks may have been laid by a human rather than a machine. The variations meant that my first board was too long. For the perfect match to the second board, the first would have to be shortened. Only by about 3mm to bring the two into alignment. It was at that point I was so glad I had used screws rather than nails. Trimming the board a little fixed it. I should have attempted to match the second board to the first before screwing it down.

Yeah, and while that’s a good plan it doesn’t account for discrepancies in the floor or the angle the first brick runs off vertical, or any gobs of cement that happen to have pushed out from between the bricks that seem to have one purpose but to ensure you can’t get your boards fitted squarely. There’s a huge number of things all trying to prevent you from getting that perfect mitre joint.

Masking tape was very useful when trimming the boards. A strip of tape on the edge of the board and another on the mitre saw; positioned so that they are next to one another. A pencil mark on each to flag the spot of the last cut enabled me to confidently adjust the board on the saw if I had to remove another few mm or less. It’s better to make tiny cuts than risk making one that overshoots the mark leaving you with a board that’s way too short. Tedious, but worth the effort in my opinion.

Anyway, it’s done and I’m celebrating. The filler and painting will come later.

There is a good reason that skirtings are scribed for internal corners.
You will find it much easier for your next room.