We plaster the steam room in the bathhouse with gypsum plaster. Plastering a brick oven

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Finishing the bath: choosing the best materials for the steam room, washing room and changing room

Steam room

Many years ago, having just moved to the village and built our first bathhouse, we were also very arrogant. And they lined the steam room with pine boards. Aroma! Beauty! There was no limit to the joy until hot drops of resin began to drip onto my head, and ugly streaks appeared on the walls.

I had to improve my theory, and not just be proud of my ability to work with my hands. The head in this matter is also not superfluous.

Materials for walls and ceilings

It will not be news to anyone that no synthetic materials are strictly used for lining the steam room. Many of them tolerate heat and moisture well, but when heated they emit harmful substances or become very hot themselves.

But not all natural finishing materials are suitable for this purpose. The most suitable one is wood in the form of a polished edged board, lining, blockhouse or imitation timber. However, there are limitations here too!

Are all breeds able to withstand temperature changes, resist fungus, and not rot due to constant contact with moist air? Not everyone. And many of those that are capable have certain disadvantages: they are expensive, get very hot, or “cry” with resin.

Brief characteristics of different types of wood, which are most often used to decorate baths and saunas, will help you make your choice:

1. Linden. Changes very little under the influence of steam and temperature, maintaining a beautiful creamy shade. Fills the steam room with a delicate pleasant aroma. But it gets very hot, so the linden shelf needs to be doused with cold water or covered with a sheet before planting. It is unlikely that it will be possible to insulate walls simply with linden lining without thermal insulation material due to its high thermal conductivity. Cost of 1 sq.m. 600-800 rubles.

1. Black alder. According to operational characteristics of the ideal material: almost does not change the appearance and properties, on the contrary, the aroma and color of wood become more saturated over time. Besides doesn't heat up, allowing you not to be afraid of burns. But it does not emit particularly useful phytoncides and is more expensive than linden - 750-1200 rubles.

1. Aspen. Finishing the inside of a bathhouse with aspen is not the best solution in terms of aesthetics, since when exposed to moisture it turns gray. But in terms of thermal conductivity, it is similar to alder - it does not heat up and can itself become a good additional heat insulator for walls and ceilings. In addition, it allows you to save money, since it costs 400-500 rubles per sq.m.

1. Larch. If you need high-quality, beautiful and, as they say, lasting for centuries, then larch is an excellent choice. Including the price (up to 1000 rubles per square), if you compare it with the cost of valuable wood species with similar properties. She has the highest resistance to moisture, which only increases over time. But finishing a steam room in a bathhouse with larch is a difficult task, since this dense wood is difficult to process.

1. Ash. This wood already belongs to valuable varieties and a square meter of such lining costs between 1500-2000 rubles. As for the use of a steam room for finishing, it is perfect for this purpose: it has a beautiful texture, does not darken, is not afraid of high humidity and temperature, and also has healing properties, especially useful for people with respiratory diseases.

1. Oak. Of our local wood species, this is the densest and most beautiful. In all respects it is suitable for tiling a steam room, it looks solid and reliable, but it also costs a decent amount: 2300-2800 rubles. This finish is already considered elite.

1. Abashi. For those who do not expect to spend a lot of money, you can skip this and the next points, since decorating even a small room with African abashi oak will be very expensive. 3000-3300 rubles per sq.m. This exotic wood surpasses all others in moisture resistance and has an unusual richness. But all this is unlikely to justify its price, since it does not provide any benefit to the body and, moreover, gets very hot.

1. Canadian cedar. The most expensive material listed, used only in elite baths. Exudes a pleasant aroma and healthy essential oils. Very beautiful, easy to process. Depending on the thickness of the lining, it can cost from 4,000 to 8,000 rubles per square meter.

The range of prices in these examples is explained not only by the different thickness of the boards, but also by their length. Short ones are cheaper. In general, all of these are grade A or Extra products, so you can find them cheaper.

Now about very popular and inexpensive breeds, but completely unsuitable for use in hot and humid rooms.

1. Pine and spruce. The most inexpensive lining, costing 200-240 rubles per square meter, is made from just these conifers. And it is perfect for covering walls in a recreation room and making furniture for it. The exterior decoration of a pine blockhouse is also quite beautiful and durable if the walls are built from bricks or blocks.
   But you can’t put pine in the steam room. I have already described the reasons above - this is the “tearfulness” of the tree under the influence of high temperatures. Moreover, due to humidity it becomes loose. And since protective impregnations cannot be used here, it will not last long.

1. Birch. Completely unsuitable for wet rooms - steam rooms and especially showers in bathhouses. Very afraid of moisture: it quickly loses its appearance, begins to rot and mold. But in dry and well-ventilated rooms, it is not inferior to larch or oak in terms of strength and wear resistance. It can be considered as a finishing material for a rest room. Especially if it is spacious and you are looking for something not very expensive. 400-440 rubles per square meter is quite tolerable.

To be honest, from an aesthetic point of view, it is not so important what you line the walls and ceiling with: very few people will understand at one glance at expensive wood how much it cost you. It is much more important how to decorate the bathhouse. Well-polished, well-fitted boards that are pleasant to touch are half the success.

Judge for yourself whether the traditional finishing for our region and the exotic finishing are very different:

If your imagination and patience are enough for decorative finishing in the form of backs, headrests and beautiful grilles, even better. All this can be done from expensive varieties.

All these tricks with wall cladding are not needed if they are made of thick logs of suitable species. It is enough to caulk the seams well and sand the frame. But finishing a block or brick bathhouse is not only about decorating unsightly surfaces, but also about the possibility of insulating them and reducing heat loss. But that is another topic.

It is also necessary to think through such an issue as fireproof finishing of a bathhouse made of timber or logs.

I will not repeat in the following sections about the suitability of this or that type of wood for finishing other premises. Their characteristics speak for themselves; making a choice will not be difficult.

Floor

The floor in the steam room should not be slippery and not get too hot. The most inexpensive solution is a cement screed with wooden ladders laid on top. A little more expensive - tiles or porcelain stoneware with the same drains.

Ladders are gratings made of thick boards or bars that can always be taken out and dried or lifted and washed on all sides. Therefore, there are no special requirements for the type of wood; you can even use pine - on the floor it will not get so hot as to release resin.

Solid wood flooring is another matter. Here you will have to choose species that are resistant to moisture - larch, oak, alder.

There is another option - heat-treated board. It undergoes special treatment with hot (180-200 degrees) steam in the absence of oxygen, thereby acquiring very high resistance to moisture, strength and dark shade.

The price depends on the type of wood. For example, a square meter of 40 mm thick pine flooring will cost about 1,250 rubles, and 2,700 for alder.

Washing room

The washing machine may be different. If water is supplied to the bathhouse from a centralized network or a well with a pump, and there is a water heater, it is enough to install a shower stall or simply equip a shower corner.

This is impossible without running water, so benches and watering cans are needed. Often both are found, complemented by a large plunge pool or even a swimming pool. And also washing rooms combined with a steam room.

In each case, the interior decoration of a wooden bath will be different:

• For the common room, all the materials described in the previous chapter are used. This is a wood that can withstand intense heat on walls and ceilings and tiled or concrete floors with drains.
• In a wash room, separated from the steam room and without a shower, for wall decoration You can use any wood except birch. Including coniferous ones. Here the temperature is not so high, so the resin is unlikely to flow. But the air will be filled with a pleasant aroma.

• Finishing a shower in a wooden bath can also be done with clapboard, but in this case need good supply and exhaust ventilation so that the boards dry after finishing the procedures. They must be treated with a moisture-repellent agent and the coating must be renewed periodically.

• It will be much more durable to cover the walls with tiles or stone at least one and a half meters from the floor. If the load-bearing walls are wooden, they are waterproofed, covered with moisture-resistant plasterboard, and tiles are glued onto it.

• A very convenient option is a shower room with a door or curtain. It can be arranged in a dead end or fenced off a corner with a partition. And there will be no questions about how to decorate the walls in the washing room: with tiles. And the rest of the space, where there will be no heat, no high humidity, whatever.

• It’s even easier to install a ready-made shower stall, and then you don’t have to worry too much about wall cladding; plastic panels will do. In this case, finishing materials are selected in the same way as for a bathroom in an apartment.

The ceiling here can be plastered and covered with moisture-resistant paint that is resistant to washing. But if you regularly use the bathhouse, you will need to update the coating at least once every two years.

Such types of finishing as wooden and plastic lining, slatted or suspended ceilings are also quite acceptable. They are not afraid of moisture, spotlights can be built into them, and the space between the ceiling and the cladding can be filled with thermal insulation.

If the bathhouse is wooden, built from ordinary logs or timber, finishing can begin no earlier than in a year. Because it will settle as the wood shrinks, deforming the cladding.

If you don’t want to wait, you can bother with a floating frame for drywall and tiles. How to do this correctly is described in the article “Facing a wooden house with plasterboard.” And unlined walls must be treated with a natural-based antifungal antiseptic impregnation.

Locker room

The materials for decorating this room can be very different. But it’s hard to come up with anything better than a tree. However, it can be supplemented with other types of finishing: decorative plaster, artificial stone tiles, various wall tiles, etc.

It all depends on the size and purpose:

• If this is a small dressing room in a free-standing bathhouse, intended only for undressing and dressing, it is better to limit yourself to moisture-resistant wooden finishing. Especially if the bathhouse is heated once a week, and the rest of the time it is not heated.

• If this is a spacious recreation room with a heating system from the house, then your desires are unlimited. Even wallpaper and painting on the walls - as long as you like it.

Examples for inspiration:

As for how to decorate the outside of the bathhouse, any façade materials can be used here. Most often, a beautiful log house is left without cladding, limited to caulking the joints, sanding and treating with decorative and protective agents.

And buildings made of brick, foam blocks and other building stones are finished in accordance with the house or imitate a log house using a wooden, plastic or metal blockhouse.

Conclusion

Now you know what materials to use so that the interior decoration of a timber bathhouse will please you for many years in a row, without requiring repairs or alterations. To do this, it is not necessary to use expensive exotic materials that have little health benefits. In this regard, our native linden wins a hundred points over the African oak, and it looks no worse.

If you have anything to say or ask on the topic, you are welcome to comment. Let's discuss.

It's time to protect the walls from the outside. I prepare the same sand for plastering, high quality, without dust and impurities. I had to buy more cement; in anticipation of future work, I immediately took a dozen more bags for $35. And I brought more sand, it will still be necessary to plaster the inside.

I have a box for preparing the plaster mixture, the same one in which the concrete was mixed for the foundation. I prepare the mixture in slightly different proportions. Sand, compared to a sand-gravel mixture, has much smaller fractions in its volume, and in order for cement to envelop every grain of sand, it is necessary to add it. In short, two buckets of sand, half a bucket of cement. While stirring, I add water as needed until the solution is not too liquid, so that you can take it with a trowel and it will not spread on it.

By the way, for external plastering it is absolutely not necessary, and in my opinion it is not necessary, to use various super-mixes, which are offered by different companies. Cement is cement; a surface plastered and painted with it lasts without damage for decades.

Before plastering, each subsequent section must be prepared. The rougher the surface, the better the plaster will adhere. It is extremely easy to roughen a wall made of foam concrete. You don't need any special tools, just a hand wire brush for metal. I did it once (!) and the desired surface was obtained. Under the action of a wire brush, the walls of the bubbles break easily and quickly. And you don’t need to press the brush too hard.

Now, before applying the solution, it is necessary to wet the wall. I just hosed down with water. What is it for? To keep the wall wet and not suck moisture out of the plaster mixture, especially from the part that comes into contact with the wall material. Only in this case, the cement of the mixture, when it sets, adheres to the cement of the wall in the best way.

To apply and level the solution, I use a trowel and a small rule (emphasis on and). It is a simple device made of a wooden plank with a handle on one side. It couldn’t be simpler, and master plasterers use the same thing. And also: does it make sense to buy such a thing in a store? It only takes 10 minutes to make it.

I take the mixture from the box with a trowel, in one movement I transfer it to the rule and spread it on the wall, creating a slight vibration from right to left. I start the stroke from the bottom and move upward, where I smoothly round off. After applying a few strokes, I use the same rule to level the surface using circular movements. It takes very little time and effort to get used to it and do it almost masterfully.

After two or three hours, I will return to the slightly stronger plaster and once again, using circular movements, I will finally level the surface, cutting off the excess and adding portions of the mixture in the right places.

A special topic is angles. You can approach the technology of plastering them in different ways, but I found the following method to be the most convenient for me. On one side of the corner I lay a flat board in any convenient way and secure it. I secure it so that its edge protrudes slightly from the corner. On the other side of the corner I apply a layer of plaster to the height of the protruding part. And after a couple of hours, I carefully release this board, move it and fasten it to the other side of the corner, but now flush with the edge of the plastered wall. Now it’s convenient to plaster the second side of the corner, and then also carefully move and remove the board.

After plastering the outer surfaces of the walls, I make sure that they do not dry out for a couple of days and periodically water them. Then I let it dry for a few days and paint it. I use regular water-based paint. The store didn't have the color I needed, so I took white and mixed it with the coloring compound. There is a lot of this stuff in stores now. I paint with a roller, which is very convenient for such large and flat areas.

Plastering walls and partitions inside a bathhouse is practically no different from this work outside. The walls are made of foam concrete as well, and the walls of partitions are as described in the partitions section. Before plastering the partitions, you just need to first install the door frames for the doors to the sink and sauna. When plastering, I monitor the evenness of the plaster layer, checking it vertically and horizontally with a straight long strip. Where necessary, I add a layer or, conversely, remove it.

Again you're talking about these mixtures! After all, it is completely clear that they will never say a word about the negative qualities in them. And have you seen anywhere comparative characteristics with the same sand-cement mixture? They say our mixture is stronger and more durable, etc. I did not see. And from practice I know that the strength and durability of ordinary cement-sand plaster will last more than one century. I won’t even remind you about reasonable sufficiency...

And I have seen more than once how cement plaster falls off in chunks, tiles bounce off...

And I saw it. Only if hacks lay tiles or plaster even with a super-duper mixture, it will still fall off. In any case, the surface must be prepared accordingly, and companies in the instructions for their mixtures also certainly describe the preparation process.

How to prepare for cement plaster?

Everything has already been said above. Applied to our walls. You can only add one thing: if you lay a tile, for example, on a dirty surface, then you need to wash it, that is, the surface. And not just rinse with water, but also coat it with a brush dipped in the solution and wipe the entire surface. This will be perfect. The same or approximately the same thing is said in the instructions for any mixtures. Putty, primer, etc.

Regardless of what material the stove is made of, leveling plaster will be needed. The flat surface can then be whitewashed and painted. There are at least two reasons why you need fireproof plaster for the stoves in your own bath: improving the appearance and safety of the stove. If this is not done, cracks will form under the influence of high temperature, through which smoke will pass.

But much more dangerous than traces of soot on walls is the effect of carbon monoxide on human health. Therefore, manufacturers insist on the use of fire-resistant compounds. Plastering the stove with your own hands will help you make your own bath complex not only as comfortable as possible, but also safe.

Benefits of plastering

Preparing a solution that will stick to a hot surface, and not just prevent leaks, is not so easy. For this purpose, it is necessary to determine the quality and content of clay fat in order to accurately calculate the proportions of ingredients in the solution. It is much easier and safer to use a mixture that is already available as a finished product or simply diluted with water. Modern manufacturers offer many options for heat-resistant plaster that can withstand different temperatures, so choosing the right option is not difficult.

Special heat-resistant plaster has the following positive qualities.

1. Eco-friendly ingredients. This is very important, because under the influence of high temperature, substances that are normally harmless decompose and release toxins.
2. Great strength and resistance to significant temperature fluctuations, low risk of cracking.
3. Durability. Properly prepared and applied plaster for a bathhouse stove will last for at least 50 years.
4. High elasticity and viscosity. The material can be easily applied to almost any surface.
5. Some of the mixtures can also be used on metal surfaces.

Traditional plaster finishes can deteriorate at very high temperatures, but a fire resistant finish remains intact even when exposed to temperatures up to 650 degrees Celsius. Thanks to this, independent use of the heat-resistant composition becomes much safer and more functional. If you plaster the surfaces, they will not only be extremely durable, but also smooth, which affects the achievement of an aesthetic final effect. Disadvantages: higher cost compared to traditional materials and inability to use as a surface finish.

Once the plaster has been applied, it should be painted or tiled.

Choosing fireproof plaster for a stove in a bathhouse

Most heat-resistant joints are universal. They can be used not only as a material for creating a flat surface and leveling walls, but also as a reliable base for brickwork. When choosing plaster, you first need to pay attention to its operating temperature and correlate it with a certain degree of heating of the stove in your home bath.

The raw materials for the production of heat-resistant fillers are clay, cement, sand, lime and gypsum. The key components - lime and clay - are used in all mixtures; other ingredients may be absent or appear in different proportions. In the past, asbestos was also added. But today it has been completely abandoned due to the high toxicity of the material and harm to health.

The range of oven putty in stores is for every taste and budget. But if you think that it is enough to just take ordinary cement plaster for the fireplace, which will retain its qualities and appearance for a long time, you are mistaken. This is only possible for decorative stoves that do not operate in the heating system. The composition for operating furnaces must have special properties.

The choice of mixture is largely determined by the location of the furnace and the purpose of use. For example, if this is an outdoor grill, the heat-resistant plaster should not contain materials that are sensitive to moisture.

How to do the work yourself

Preparing brick surfaces for plastering is also a mandatory step in the process. Direct application of fireproof plaster to the stove in a bathhouse can be carried out using several methods. You can get the job done without additional skills in handling tools and solutions. However, if you are not confident in your own abilities, it is better to entrust this matter to professionals.

You can apply a layer of fireproof plaster using one of the available methods. The first method is used when we are talking about an uneven surface with a large number of defects. In this case, it is necessary to apply a layer 5–8 cm thick.

Instructions for plastering a stove in a bathhouse with your own hands

For the last stage you will need a liquid solution. Layer thickness – no more than 2 mm. After applying it, the stove can be whitewashed or painted.

To ensure that the plaster is applied as evenly as possible, use an angled spatula in the corners.

Some experts prefer to use a wooden board. Secure it to one side of the stove while you apply a layer of plaster. After the solution has hardened, move the bar to the other side and proceed to applying the solution on that plane.

Applying plaster to metal mesh

This is another, no less popular method. The composition is fixed on the surface, allowing the plane to be leveled as much as possible. The maximum distance from the mesh to the oven is 25 mm.

The solution is also applied in several layers. The first and second - in the same way as in the previous case. After applying and curing the last layer, which will hide the mesh, eliminate the defects using grout. This method will make the oven walls stronger and more reliable.

Using a small layer

Another common technology for plastering a stove is to apply one or two thin (no more than 2 mm in thickness) layers of liquid mortar with the addition of asbestos. It is used if the surface of the oven is sufficiently smooth and neat. This will update the look of your home bath.

A primer must first be applied to the surface to be treated. The composition is applied from bottom to top. Use beacons to ensure a flat, level surface. The plaster is leveled with a regular wide spatula.

You can choose fire-resistant inexpensive plaster for the stove in any construction supermarket or on the Internet, and its use ensures complete safety while maintaining the high aesthetics of the interior decoration. It is recommended where there is a lack of finishing coating: in places exposed to high temperatures, which causes cracking, especially when it comes to plastering a stove in your own bathhouse.

Fire-resistant plaster is an excellent alternative to traditional coating and, in some respects, differs for the better.

Last year we fulfilled a long-time dream and built a bathhouse at our dacha. After surviving one Ural winter, the cinder block began to crumble, which was expected and quite logical.

We were faced with the question of protecting the walls of our structure from external weather influences. The choice was between covering the house with siding or plastering it with plaster, and was made in favor of the latter, since our calculations showed that it was cheaper. There are also inexpensive siding panels, but you should not forget about the fittings, which significantly round up the amount.

Let's start plastering. The first thing you need to do is install beacons on the walls. We attached them to the rotband cakes, retreating 20-30 cm from the corner and making the vertical distances between the beacons about 40 cm.

The width between the beacons depends on the size of the rule that will be used to level the plaster; our width is about 120-140 cm.

Beacons are installed according to the level, this is the most important condition and this will allow us to get perfectly smooth walls and right angles at the exit.

Next, we prepare a cement-sand mortar, observing the proportions of 1:3 (1 part cement (M400), 3 parts river sand). Add water little by little, the solution should be viscous, liquid will drain, and too thick will fall off. To increase the viscosity of the solution, we took advantage of popular advice and added dishwashing detergent to the composition (1 cap of detergent per 150 liter concrete mixer). The resulting solution is thrown onto the wall with a trowel and straightened from the bottom up along the beacons.

Here, of course, a certain skill is desirable; a beginner will definitely need an assistant.

A flat board was useful to form beautiful, clear corners. It should be secured (nailed or spacers installed) along the corner.

Preliminary plastering is complete.

In hot weather, do not forget to spray the walls with water to avoid cracking of the material. Follow the link for a description of beacon plaster.

Our consumption at this stage was 5 bags of cement per bathhouse with an area of ​​50 sq.m. The consumption depends on the layer of plaster; our layer was about 2 cm.

Before finishing plastering, beacons should be removed from the walls. If you leave them, then under the influence of precipitation, rust may appear on the walls. For the sake of economy, we also did the final plastering with a cement-sand mortar, with the obligatory sifting of the sand through a fine-mesh sieve. We took the same proportions (1:3), but diluted it not with water, but with milk of lime. Lime acts as a plasticizer, improving the properties of the finished solution. Lime milk is prepared from quicklime with water (proportions 1:9).
The finishing plaster is applied with a trowel on a grater and in a circular, as if rubbing, motion, the mixture is applied to the wall moistened with water.

Angles are derived using the same method described above.

The finished result looks like this:

Our cement consumption for finishing plaster was 2.5 bags (grade M400). The last photo shows defects from small pebbles (the sand was poorly sifted). To eliminate them, before painting, you can go over the walls with any final plaster for exterior work, the consumption will be small, and the appearance will be much better.

When does a new stove and a stove that has already served a lot of time need plastering? This is especially true for hot parts of the structure. Therefore, the question of how to plaster a stove is by no means idle. There are many recipes, and each has its own little tricks. Let's try to find the best one.

A sauna stove, like any other stove, operates in difficult temperature conditions. Downtime in a cold state is replaced by work under high thermal loads on its hot part. Any material, even heat-resistant, has its own coefficient of thermal expansion, which leads to a change in the original linear dimensions of an individual element, for example a brick.

The brick heated up, its dimensions increased, the brick cooled, and the dimensions naturally returned to their original sizes. And so dozens, and sometimes hundreds of times. You can imagine the deformation that masonry joints and decorative finishing surfaces undergo. Linear deformations lead to a persistent disruption of the connection of individual elements in a single furnace system, and in the most unfavorable scenario, to the destruction of the structure as such. Therefore, for long-term operation of the stove in a bathhouse, it is necessary to adhere to a number of fairly simple rules:

1. Systematically inspect the stove for its performance and the presence of deformation. Initial signs appear in the appearance of tiny, barely noticeable cracks on the plane. Subsequently, they grow, connect with each other and form a network, colloquially called a “cobweb”. If treatment is not carried out at this stage, then in the future, the area and depth of the crack channels will increase, and the plaster “cakes” will peel off from the surface of the masonry, and then it will not be long before the integrity of the brick bond between each other is compromised.
2. Carry out repairs in a timely manner and using materials designed to withstand significant changes in operating temperature conditions. A sauna stove, in most cases, operates at a “ragged” pace, that is, it is heated approximately once a week, unless, of course, the sauna is used as a purely commercial facility, on a continuous schedule.
3. When carrying out plastering work, it is necessary to strictly comply with all technological requirements and practical techniques in order to obtain the required result in terms of final quality.

What is plastering done?

Traditionally, the most affordable and yet effective binding material is high-quality gully clay. Why is it gully, because the mineral of the required quality lies at a certain depth from the surface. Which, however, does not at all prevent the extraction of clay raw materials in quarries and banal pits.

In general, there are a lot of binding materials for plastering a stove; in addition to clay, they include: cement, alabaster, commonly known as gypsum, and slaked lime. In addition to binding materials, the solution contains an inert material, in our case quarry or gully sand. Moreover, its chemical composition can be different; certain sands have feldspar as their raw material base, others have quartzites.

A word from Experienced! Practice shows that good inert sand is made up of different fractions, or, in more professional terms, has a different coarseness modulus. Grains of sand that are different in size adhere to each other better and create a denser mass. Therefore, you should use fractionated or, as it is also called “calibrated” sand, with caution.

In addition to the binder and inert substance, the plaster mortar must also contain alloying substances, that is, materials the addition of which to its formulation will make it possible to obtain a mortar with certain properties. In our case, the key properties are: temperature stability, strength, ductility, the ability to maintain working qualities for a sufficient amount of time and be ready for use.

Alloys include: liquid or silicate glass, table salt, asbestos, various kinds of heat-resistant plasticizers, fireclay grains, fiberglass.

Attention! The World Health Organization classifies asbestos as a material that has carcinogenic properties, so its use should be limited by rationalism and common sense and accompanied by strict compliance with safety standards for handling potentially hazardous substances.

Here are the basic recipes for plastering solutions. For ease of use, we provide this information as a table:

Important! The clay in the given recipe, which is noted in the reference literature as fire-resistant plaster for the stove, should be thinned, ordinary. If enriched or otherwise fatty clay is used, the number of parts of sand should be increased to 4. Clay is added to the mixture only in soaked form, in the state of a clay mash that has matured for at least 4 hours. The fat content of the clay and its overall quality are determined through instrumental control, and at home in a simple but effective way, testing “on a stick”.

Determining the quality of clay at home

Since ancient times, stove makers have determined the quality and fat content of clay, in particular, by testing it “on a stick”. To do this, a smoothly planed stick is lowered into a mature clay mash; in modern conditions, this can be a clean and preferably uncracked handle from a factory-made shovel. The stick is lowered to the entire depth of the container and slowly removed. Good quality clay should cover the stick with an even layer about 1.5 - 2 mm thick. This is the norm.

If the stick is covered in places, grooves and traces of runoff are visible on the surface, then the clay is thin. This is either “tortured” or used in a ratio of 1 to 2 with sand. If the stick is covered with a thick, uneven layer, including loose lumps, then the fat content of the clay is excessive, and the rate of adding sand to the solution should be increased to 4 parts.

Plaster mortars based on alabaster

Gypsum plaster mortars belong to the class of high-strength, but have an unpleasant quality to use; their life time is about 6 - 8 minutes. Within 20 minutes, the solution completely and irrevocably sets.

Here is the recipe:

Attention! To mix alabaster-based mixtures, you need clean and cold water. PVA glue is used, partly, as a plasticizer, and in general, as a reaction inhibitor, that is, it somewhat slows down the setting process of gypsum. But it must be remembered that gypsum mixtures are demanding in terms of speed of work and their full use.

Cement based plaster mixtures

Cement is a good binder, but classic cement mortars are characterized by low temperature stability, so heat-resistant plaster for stoves includes several components that increase its characteristics:

The order of mixing such solutions is generally accepted. The dry ingredients are mixed in a separate container, then added to the aqueous clay solution.

Important! The consistency should be close to the thickness of sour cream and the finished solution should be firmly held on the surface of the trowel. An exception is the mortar for the first layer of masonry. It should be somewhat thinner and confidently fill masonry joints.

The procedure for plastering a stove and basic working techniques

Plastering a stove with your own hands involves a special procedure for carrying out work and the use of a number of technological techniques:

• The surface must be pre-prepared before application. Preparation of brick surfaces includes the following techniques: masonry joints are evenly deepened to a depth of about 8 mm. Nails with a wide head and a length of 40 mm are driven into the seams. Part of the nail stem and head should protrude on the surface, with a total length of no more than 10 mm. Nails are driven in increments of 150 - 170 mm from one another. For better adhesion of the solution, the surface of the masonry is moistened with water or primed with a 20% aqueous solution of PVA glue;
• The repair surface is prepared somewhat differently. The surface is tapped with the handle of a trowel. Exfoliated areas that produce a dull, muttering sound are removed. The slots are cut to the depth of the intact layer and approximately 2 times the original width of the slot channel. The surface is wetted with water or primed;
• Plastering is done in stages, in layers. The first or starting layer should have a more liquid consistency than the subsequent ones;
• For better retention of the plaster layer, especially if its thickness is large, a heat-resistant plaster mesh with a working cell of 10×10 mm is used;
• The thickness of each layer should not, with rare exceptions, exceed 10 mm;
• Each subsequent layer is applied after drying, but not completely drying the previous one;
• After the finishing layer has dried, the surface is leveled and finished using a standard plaster float;
• When choosing a plaster mortar, you should remember that cement-based mixtures give a dark final color, clay ones for the most part retain their natural color, lime ones are lighter and alabaster-based mixtures are almost white after drying.

Subsequent design of the plastered surface occurs in the order determined by the project.

Conclusion

To summarize, it should be noted that plastering a stove with your own hands, as well as choosing a plaster mixture, is not particularly difficult and can be done by one person. The most important condition seems to be a clear choice of a specific recipe using high-quality components and raw materials. When working, the main thing is strict adherence to the sequence and clear organization of work technology. Everything else is not difficult and directly depends on the availability of practical skills and the ability to learn quickly.