Here’s a small tip that may help you if you’ve been trying to fit skirting board in an older property with really thick plaster on the walls.

The problem usually faced is that the plaster on the wall will normally stop about two courses of brick above finished floor level. This alleviates any bridging of the damp proof course thus eradicating damp from travelling up the wall. The idea is that your skirting board will cover the exposed brick showing at the bottom of the wall.

Here’s the awkward bit! Although you can get fixings into the top of the skirting board, because of the gap at the bottom of the wall, it’s difficult to get a fixing point without the bottom of the skirting board ‘kicking in’. To solve this problem, many of the older tradesmen from years back would cut out of wood, what is know as twisted wedges. These are basically wood plugs that would be cut from say 3×1 timber and then hammered into the wall into a mortar joint.

These plugs worked well and in fact, are still used today as a solution to fixing skirting board in older houses. There is an alternative method though to save cutting the wedges and raking out mortar joints to insert them in.

Drill and plug the wall near to the bottom, perhaps every 3 feet or so, depending on the stretch of wall. Now put screws in long enough so that you can adjust them to meet the bottom of the skirting board and thus stop the board from kicking in at the bottom. Adjust the screws as required.

As well as securing your skirting boards at the top. You will also be able to get a fixing near the bottom without the board kicking in on you.

Try this out for yourself. It works a treat!!

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