Facade plaster with marble chips: types, features, application methods

For external walls, facade plaster with marble chips offers a special combination of toughness and style. Because it offers a strong protective layer and improves the appearance of buildings, this decorative finish is well-liked.

Marble chip plasters come in a variety of varieties, each with unique qualities appropriate for varying climates and architectural styles. Knowing your options is crucial, regardless of whether you want a textured, rustic finish or a smooth, polished appearance.

To get the desired effect, applying facade plaster with marble chips calls for particular techniques. Proper technique guarantees a long-lasting and aesthetically pleasing outcome, which makes it a popular option for both traditional and modern exteriors.

For building exteriors, marble chips in facade plaster provide a decorative and long-lasting finish that combines practical advantages with visual appeal. There are several varieties of this kind of plaster, each with special qualities, and it can be applied in a variety of ways to get the desired texture and appearance. Understanding the types, features, and application techniques is essential to getting a durable and aesthetically pleasing result, whether improving a new facade or remodeling an old one.

Properties and features of the material

Marble plaster, like all other plaster compositions, is made up of a combination of modifying additives, fillers, and binders that give it its flexibility and resistance to frost. The name comes from the fact that it is filled with real marble chips.

Characteristics of marble plaster

The material’s primary benefits are:

• High strength, resistance to mechanical and natural influences;
• Hardness and durability;
• Resistance to water and dampness;
• Good vapor permeability, which is important when creating “breathable” coatings;
• Resistance to ultraviolet rays;
• Environmental cleanliness;
• Excellent adhesion to different surfaces – brick, concrete, foam concrete, plaster, drywall, etc.d.

Naturally, a lot of these benefits are only available if the plastering, installation, and operation instructions are properly followed. The range of marble plaster types and decorative qualities is another significant benefit.

Composition and types

The marble chips by themselves won’t adhere to the base; a binder is required. Here, the composition’s elasticity, impact resistance, water resistance, and other crucial qualities are provided by the acrylic resins.

Additionally, there might be a variety of additives that help the coating repel dirt, resist mold and mildew, and avoid cracking when it dries. Furthermore, the filler determines how the piece looks and is decorative.

Kindly take note. The primary need for it is roughly the same grain size; the chips in marble facade plaster need to be calibrated in order to produce a uniform and monolithic coating.

The purpose of the plaster is also determined by the size of the filler fractions. Larger mixtures are used to decorate facades if finer-grained mixtures are used for interior decoration.

Furthermore, the base (cm. Finishing a House’s Basement: Workable Options) is typically plastered with sizable pebbles. This is caused by both the final coating’s appearance and weight; the heavier the coating, the more robust the base should be.

The size of the fractions affects the plaster’s cost, the minimum layer thickness, and, consequently, the consumption per square meter.

Kindly take note. The plaster packaging might just list the type of plaster and not provide details about the precise fraction size.

Color

There wasn’t a wide range of colors available in plaster until recently because it was only made with natural-colored chips. Furthermore, the heterogeneity of the mined marble layers may cause significant color variations between compositions from different batches.

This issue is now fixed since new technologies have made it possible to tint the entire baby in shades that are either natural or absent from real marble.

Only sun-resistant, light-resistant pigments are used for this purpose, and the material is heat-treated following painting. For facades, this means that the color stability is guaranteed for more than 15 years, and for interior decorative plaster, it is guaranteed for more than 25 years.

These technologies have given us limitless possibilities to put any design concept into practice. Thousands of artificial shades have now been added to the several hundred natural ones, and the plaster itself may contain a multicolored assortment of chips.

How to decorate the facade with marble plaster

It is hardly necessary to go into great detail about the entire procedure of using your hands to apply plaster to the facade. It is composed of common phases that have been covered in multiple descriptions on this website. However, there are still certain subtleties, which we will discuss with you.

Preparation

Given the substantial weight of the plaster, careful preparation of the base is necessary to ensure good adhesion and stability.

What is required in order to do this:

• First of all – remove the old coating, if any.
• The next stage – carefully seal all chips, cracks and other defects with cement mortar.
• Then – level the surface with ordinary plaster.

Kindly take note. If there are no noticeable variations in the level and the walls are relatively even, this step is not necessary. A decorative coating will perfectly camouflage minor imperfections. However, it is best to plaster the brickwork after removing any mortar that was sticking out of the joints.

• Next, you should wait for the walls to dry – their humidity should be no more than 5%. For the same reason, you should not plaster facades in rainy or damp weather.
• The last preparatory stage – priming the surface. It is done with an acrylic deep penetration primer, the composition is applied in 2-3 layers. This is necessary to prevent moisture from penetrating into the thickness of the base, to achieve its maximum strength and to minimize the risk of peeling of the heavy coating. Each layer is applied with a brush or roller only after the previous one has dried.

Advice: To prevent spots from showing through the plaster, the primer should be tinted to a suitable tone if the wall is uneven in color.

Application

Make sure you have enough time and supplies before you begin working to finish at least one wall from corner to corner. The facade plaster with marble chips will lie in "pieces" if you take extended pauses; in the light of day, this will make the lines separating the areas painted at various times quite visible.

There are two methods for laying the solution on the base: mechanical and manual.

• In the first case, a portion of the mixture is grabbed from a bucket with a small spatula and evenly distributed over the blade of the working tool – a wide spatula or trowel, after which it is rubbed over the wall with a little effort. The layer thickness should not exceed 1.5 diameters of the largest fraction of chips in the plaster.

• For mechanical application, use a pneumatic crumbler, the nozzle of which is placed at a distance of about half a meter from the wall and throw the solution onto it, moving from top to bottom. Immediately after spraying, smooth the solution with a spatula or other convenient tool.

Following the plaster’s drying time, a metal float is used to clean the surface. A thin layer of specialty varnish is then applied to the surface to strengthen the coating.

Suggestions. Small portions of the facade, such as niches, window and door slopes, and decorative elements, are good places to practice the application technique.

Once you’ve plastered a few small decorative protrusions, larger surfaces should come naturally to you.

If you’re looking for an eye-catching and long-lasting exterior wall finish, marble chips in facade plaster make a great option. It can be used in a range of architectural styles and environments due to its resilience and natural beauty.

Making an informed choice and ensuring that the finished product satisfies both practical and aesthetic requirements are made possible by being aware of the various types and features of this plaster. Choosing between fine and coarse chips allows you to personalize the finish to your taste.

Even though it needs careful attention to detail, the application process is simple enough for professionals or experienced do-it-yourselfers to handle. If you use the right techniques, you can have a beautiful, long-lasting facade that makes your property look better overall.

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