Repair a hole in plasterboard wall

Question

I'm wondering what is the best way to fix this hole in my wall. It's a plasterboard wall in a UK house.

The previous owner of the house made a hold in the wall to run some cables for security cameras through and appears to have just made a hole, pushed the cables through, and then filled in the hole with filler of some kind.

A few days ago I moved the wire slightly and the entire section that was filled fell out. It looks like the filler was in the hole but not actually attached to anything other than the wires than ran through it, and then painted over.

(The other visible wire is his "high quality" internet extension wire :P )

Ok, so I want to do a better job to fill the hole than he did. The hole goes back a few cm into open space and is about 4cm by maybe 2cm. I think that just filling it with standard filler like he tried isn't going to work well.

What is the proper way to fix something like this? Is there something that will work to fill the hole properly? AS you can tell I know little about this :)

Thanks!

Answer 1

Broken up plaster is not a good base for repair as it is springy, not stable and ridged. You want to screw a piece if wood as a backing plate to give a good solid base to apply Fix-all.

Try to slide a piece of wood that is as wide as the narrowest openng, but 6" longer than the area you want to repair. You will span the entire area from inside the hole and then secure the wood with screws through the front. Drill a hole in the middle of the wood for a finger-hold, or drive in a screw to hold onto.

Apply Fix-all to the hole and smooth to just below the surface. Fix-all is not very forgiving, so you don't want to end up with too much material and the need to try to sand it down to level with the wall surface. Better to apply it shallow and fill it out with spackel and then finish it smooth.