Indy Total Construction

Standard features of all houses, however plain. Although each performs a specific job, they also provide ornamentation and a chance to vary decoration.

As the years pass, they’re bound to come in for a few knocks – and will most likely be covered in several layers of paint, which not only get chipped but also eventually clog up their profiles. Skirting boards, in particular, are also prone to rot if walls or floors are damp. However, since wood trim is in no way part of the house’s structure, repairs and even replacement should create no major problems.

Slight dents and cracks can often be repaired with cellulose filler – or perhaps glass fibre repair paste for larger or more accident-prone areas. In most cases you’ll have difficulty blending in the filler by hand with an ordinary filling knife. Instead, you can use a template cut to the profile of the molding from plastic sheet (a large plastic ice-cream container is ideal), or hardboard or cardboard; run it along to smooth the surface after applying the filler.

If the damage is more serious, you may be able to saw and/or chisel out the bad part to leave clean edges, and glue and pin in a small piece or pieces of prepared molding, or else plain timber shaped to fit.

If patching and filling won’t work, you need a completely new piece. This, however, can be a snag if your existing molding is one of the scores of obsolete types, because you won’t be able to match it off the shelf.

You may occasionally be able to buy something suitable – on site where an old house is being demolished or renovated, or perhaps from a demolition contractor who stocks secondhand timber. Otherwise, many joinery firms will cut a molding specially if you take in a sample of the pattern; but that’s likely to prove very expensive.

Your next option is to substitute a readily available pattern of molding throughout the room. But that’s a pity – not to say a lot of trouble – if most of it is sound. A third possibility, probably the most attractive if you only need a small piece, is to make it yourself. You can mold the shape with a power router, or perhaps a plough plane, combination plane or scratch stock.

A scratch stock consists of a piece of steel (for example part of a hacksaw blade) ground and/or filed to the profile you want. It is then clamped with screws between two pieces of hardwood in an improvised stock, and scraped along the timber till the desired shape emerges.

Externally curved moldings, such as plain chamfered skirting and architrave, can of course usually be formed with an ordinary bench plane and glasspaper. Lastly, it’s sometimes possible to make the molding up in sections from smaller ones, glued together and filled where necessary.

One of the commonest problems associated with baths, shower trays and wash basins is the difficulty of sealing the gap between the edges and the walls. It is extremely important that this is done effectively as, apart from being an unsightly dirt trap, water continually splashing through the gap can lead to attacks of rot in floor timbers, as well as damaging decorations in the room below.

An ordinary cellulose filler will be adequate, but you’ll probably find that it won’t last for very long. After all, repeated soakings are bound to start it crumbling. And even if this can be avoided, the chances are that the movement of the bath relative to the wall — as it fills with hot water or as someone climbs in or out — will have the same result.

The answer is to use a special kind of filler, one that is both waterproof and flexible. called silicone mastic. This is frequently sold as bathroom sealant in small tubes, or, for larger jobs, in cartridges that fit into a special mastic gun. In addition to white. it is available in a selection of colors to match the variety of colored bathroom suites now on the market.

If you are faced by a crack up to 3mm (‘/sin) wide, then filling it is a straightforward job. All you do is squeeze a bead of mastic along the gap, holding the nozzle at an angle of about 45′. If you are using a cartridge gun: you can cut the nozzle to produce a bead of the correct size. If the mastic ends up on surfaces where it’s not required, wipe it off with a damp cloth before it sets. With the bead in place you’ll have to finish it off with a piece of dowel or narrow piping. Dip it in water to prevent the mastic from sticking and don’t be tempted to use your fingers — you won’t get as neat a finish and you could run the risk of inadvertently getting mastic in your eyes.

However, if the gap is wider than 3mm (1/sin) or so, you’ll find it increasingly difficult to apply the bead smoothly and neatly, and to prevent it sagging once in place. The solution is to caulk the gap before applying the mastic. This involves filling the crack with soft rope or twists of soaked newspaper to provide a base that will help the mastic to bridge the gap until it sets. Provided you finish off with a good covering of mastic, there’s no reason why this shouldn’t last. However, it is a fiddly job and you might prefer to use an alternative method.