Repair plaster on facade (base)

Hello everyone,

my wife and I bought a house last year - built in 1978 (so it is older than us ).

Now, of course, some renovation or even restoration work needs to be done.

Yesterday, I noticed that on the rear side of the house at the "base" - roughly at the height of the basement windows - the plaster is damaged. It is loose and a piece about 5cm * 3cm can be removed. The areas around this removable part are somewhat cracked, and probably the adhesion will not hold in the medium term here either.

Now my question: How can I possibly fix this myself? I am not a professional, but not completely unskilled with tools. My main concern is to act quickly here to protect the masonry from possible harmful influences (moisture).

I look forward to any answer and any advice.

Hm, I once renovated our facade plaster before repainting our old house.
Tap off everything and knock off extensively anything that sounds hollow.
Repair with appropriate primer, moistening the surface, etc. (as stated on the repair plaster).
Fine cracks can probably be left.
But all without guarantee from me - I am also an amateur.

Plaster usually comes off if the substrate is damp. That should be checked, what the cause is. From the inside or the outside?!

Regards, Yvonne

It is rising damp that is destroying the plaster. As ypg says, repair the plaster, but also remove the soil at the base and apply a bitumen insulating coat. So that the moisture no longer reaches the masonry. Then no soil against the foundation, but gravel, coarse gravel, that drains water well. Karsten

Hello and thank you very much for your advice.

I have now repaired the damage with repair plaster. There is no soil at the spot, but rather a recess in front of the window paved with concrete slabs.

The damage looked as follows:


P.S. Unfortunately, the specialist store no longer had any base paint. At the hardware store, they wanted to sell me wood preservative paint instead of the base paint. I insisted on the base paint because I simply could not imagine that wood and plaster have identical properties... Do you have any information on this?

Repair, let it harden well and dry, then apply facade paint on it. Looks to me like frost bit there at some point. Karsten

Base plaster: Observe maximum depth below finished ground level. Do not forget the base waterproofing. Only then paint with the correct color.