Plastic skirting boards

The final stage in separating the premises is the installation of skirting boards. This is the final touch that completes the interior. Increasingly, instead of the usual wooden planks, a plastic plinth is used. It has a low cost, easy to install and maintain.

Advantages and disadvantages

Plastic skirting board is a practical solution that allows you to simultaneously solve two tasks - to give a finished look to the room and hide, if necessary, wires, which are more than enough in our homes.

Plastic skirting board - a practical solution

PVC skirting boards have the following advantages:

• Light weight.
• Simple installation, no preliminary or subsequent preparation required.
• Long service life, resistance to ultraviolet radiation, household chemicals.
• Simple maintenance, no need to regularly renew the decorative coating.
• Harmlessness.

Installing a plastic skirting board is a practical solution. They are gradually replacing traditional wooden planks, as they are superior in many respects. There are few disadvantages. First, plastic is an unnatural material. The second is the flammability of plastics and the possibility of releasing harmful substances.

Using a PVC plinth with a cable channel, you can secretly route wires / cables

You won't be able to argue with unnaturalness, but there are already so many “unnatural” around that it still won't play a part. In addition, good plastic is chemically neutral and does not emit any harmful substances in its normal state.

The flammability of plastics is different - there are plastics that do not burn and do not spread combustion, there are ones with reduced smoke emission, in which harmful substances are still minimized. So if you want, you can find a non-flammable plastic floor plinth.

Types of plastic skirting boards

Plastic skirting boards can be of the following varieties:

• ordinary;
• flexible;
• with cable duct;
• with flexible (rubberized) edge;
• for painting.

Let's take a closer look at each variety.

Flexible PVC skirting board

If it is necessary to arrange columns, curved walls, roundings, a problem arises - it is problematic to use ordinary rigid planks - you have to cut into small segments, join with the help of connecting elements. It takes a lot of time, it turns out expensively for money, while the view is far from ideal, since it still turns out to be a broken line, not a smooth curve.

This is how rounded walls are decorated with a standard plinth and plastic

In such cases, it is better to use a flexible skirting board. Flexible is relative. In its normal state, it is tough, but bends well only when the temperature rises. Before installation on curved surfaces, it is heated with a construction hairdryer to 60-70 ° C, bent into the shape that is required and fixed.

After cooling, it will acquire its original hardness. They can easily shape a column, for example, not to mention a smooth curve.

With soft edge

The plastic skirting board is the most flexible of its kind. If necessary, it can be pulled so that it will adhere even to an uneven wall.But to achieve full adherence to an uneven wall without the slightest gaps is possible only if its upper edge is made elastic - rubber.

Rubberized edge avoids even the smallest crevices

The elastic edge has the same color, although it is made of plastic material. Due to its high elasticity, it bends around even the smallest irregularities, leaving no gaps or gaps.

With cable duct

In modern dwellings, there are more and more equipment and wires going to it. One of the most convenient and cheapest ways to stealthily run cables around an apartment or house is to install a plastic plinth with a cable channel.

The cable duct is a specially formed recess / cavity along the entire length of the skirting board. Several wires are laid in this recess - television, telephone, computer cables. There are two types of them:

• With a molded recess in the body of the skirting board itself and a removable decorative strip. First, the plinth is mounted, then the cables are laid in the recess, then the bar is closed.
  

  This is a plastic skirting board with molded cable routing

• In two parts - a plastic / metal mounting plate, which is a cable channel and a decorative plastic cover. Cavities for cable laying are formed on the bar. It is mounted on the wall, the cable is laid in it, after which the plastic part - in fact, the plinth - is snapped onto this bar.
  

  This skirting board with cable channels consists of two parts

The number of cables to be laid depends on the size of the cavities in them. More space is available in the second type - with a separately mounted cable duct. But the possibilities of the first type can be expanded by laying wires in the cavity above and below the formed channel. The difficulty is that access to them will be difficult - they are also located under the plinth. To get to them, you have to dismantle it. Therefore, it is advisable to lay wires that rarely require maintenance - television, Internet, etc.

For painting

There is a plastic foam PVC plinth. By using a porous material, the surface can be painted. A good option if you need a custom color scheme. After all, the set of colors is still limited, and so you can choose the desired shade.

Non-standard solution - plastic floor plinth made of foamed PVC for painting

Dimensions

Plastic is one of the most flexible materials that allows you to make products of any shape and size. Therefore, a plastic floor plinth can be of any section and size, but it still has certain limitations that are associated with the practical side. In general, plastic skirting boards are produced with the following parameters:

• height 50-120 mm;
• thickness 10-26 mm;
• length 2000-25000 mm.
  

  Some types of plastic skirting boards with dimensions

These are the most common sizes, but there are one-off variations. For example, there are wider ones at the bottom - about 50 mm. They are needed if the gap between the wall and the floor covering is slightly larger than the technology requires.

Additional elements

When installing a plastic floor plinth, you will need not only the plinths themselves, but also additional (additional) elements to them. It:

• External and internal corner.
• Connector - for joining two pieces of skirting board.
• Plugs - for the design of the cuts at the junction with the doors.
• Brackets - for routing cables in corners.
  

  Types of accessories for PVC skirting boards

The number of additional elements is calculated for each individual case. We'll have to count how many external and internal corners in the room being decorated. It is also easy to count the plugs - two pieces are required for each doorway. It is a little more difficult to determine the number of connectors, but they can be taken with a margin.

Installation methods

There are two ways to install plastic skirting boards:

• With screws or dowel-nails through the surface of the skirting board.
• With the help of special clips.
  

  There is also such a method of fastening

The second option is only suitable if the walls are perfectly flat. On walls with curvature, it is better to use the usual method of fastening - with screws or dowels, the plastic floor plinth can be pulled close to the wall so that it does not lag behind the wall. It is better in this case to use models with a rubberized edge.

Fastening with clips

This method of fastening is realized using two types of clamps - clips in the form of separate plates and a long plate of the same length as the plastic skirting board. The difference is that the long clamp is used as a cable channel, that is, in this case, cables / wires can be hidden in the plastic skirting board.

The principle of fastening clamps of any type is the same:

• Clips are attached to the wall.
• The plastic part simply snaps onto them.
  

  Fastening plastic skirting boards with clips

It is worth saying again: this method is only for perfectly flat walls, otherwise the result will be unsatisfactory. The order of work is simple:

• On the wall, at the height where the clip will be located, a mark is made.
• A horizontal line is beaten off at the mark (convenient use laser level).
• Focusing on the line, clips or a bar with a cable channel are attached.
• Laying the cables. They can be additionally fastened with plastic ties or double-sided tape.
• The front panel of the plinth is installed.
  

  PVC skirting board with separate cable duct is installed in almost the same way

When installing, it is important to place the clips on the same level. Only in this case it will be possible to fix the decorative strip without problems. The permissible run-up is less than a millimeter, so we try to carefully check the position of the fastening strip or clip before fastening. One option is to make a template. To do this, cut off a piece about 15 cm long, make a hole in it and use it as a measurement, applying it in the right places.

Installation through the skirting board, using dowels / screws

This method is also suitable for not very flat walls. A hole is made in the plinth, through it, with the help of a self-tapping screw or dowel, it is attracted to the wall.

Everything seems simple, but only until you start doing it yourself. And then problems arise: in what order is it better to drill, at what distance from each other to install fasteners, how to do so so as not to spoil the appearance too much.

There are several ways, but the most correct algorithm for installing a plastic floor plinth is as follows:

• We attach a plank to the wall, press it, level it. If there is an assistant, he keeps it in a fixed state. If working alone, secure it with masking tape. You can also drill and install one extreme fastener that will firmly fix the bar and prevent it from moving.
  

  Installation through the skirting board

• We take a drill with a thin drill bit for metal 3-4 mm. Take a longer drill - so as not to spoil the plastic with the cartridge. We make marks on the profile and on the wall.
  • First of all, we drill along the edges and in those places where the plinth "lags" from the wall.
  • We apply intermediate marks so that there is a distance of 35-40 cm between the fasteners (in extreme cases, more is possible, but no more than 50 cm).
• Remove or move the skirting board.
• Drill holes of the required diameter according to the marks. If dowels are used (with screws or nails), then we take the drill 1 mm larger than the diameter of the nail / screw. When using self-tapping screws, the drill diameter is 1–2 mm less than the screw diameter.
• We return the bar to its place, put on the required additional elements on the edges, install the fasteners.
• We attach the following fragment.
  

  Drilling and not spoiling the baseboard or floor covering is the challenge

The last step is masking the installation site of the fasteners.This step is omitted if the plastic skirting board was formed with a cable channel and the fasteners were installed in this recess. If you had to drill through the front surface, mask the remaining holes with stickers in the form of small circles, which are selected according to the color of the plinth.

Selection of screws / self-tapping screws / dowel-nails

First, about the size - the load on plastic skirting boards is usually not very large, therefore they take small fasteners. Optimally - a diameter of 4-5 mm (6 mm is possible), length - 25-40 mm.

The color of the fastener - white, yellow, black - you choose depending on the color of the plastic skirting board. The choice is simple - to be least noticeable.

Fasteners are chosen with flat wide caps

When choosing, look at the shape of the cap. It should be large and as flat as possible. In this case, it will be easy to mask everything.

A few practical points

When installing a plastic floor plinth with a cable channel, it is more convenient to lay cables already strapped here and there into a bundle. If the cables are very stiff, they tend to pop out. In this case, it is more convenient to use double-sided tape for the screed. It will hold the conductors in place.

You can cut some types of plastic skirting boards with a regular stationery / wallpaper knife, but it is better to use a saw with a metal blade

Even with the correct calculation of the length of the plinth pieces (they should go 2-3 mm into the additional element), the outer corners tend to pop out. To get rid of this trouble, the connection is coated with a sealant. Better to use silicone. After drying, it remains elastic, if necessary, it can be dismantled.