Reinforcing plasterboard

[gpkennedy]

Hi
I am working at a secondary school and we get damage to plasterboard sheets, some vandalism but mostly just wear and tear. Rerpair plasterboard and then paint is time consuming. Have considered using Masonite White-Cote and gluing it to the lower sections of the walls. This should strengthen the walls and be easier to clean. Any suggestion as to the effectiveness of this idea?
George

[rod@plasterbrok]

George, the standards for most new schools now, is to have a sheet of 9mm villaboard over the top of the plasterboard up to 1.2m. This prevents them from kicking holes in the walls.

Usually this is only in the hallways, except in the toilet blocks they use the 9mm Villaboard full height.

This is fairly successful as these are the areas most damage is caused. Normally they are not in unsupervised classrooms, (or at least they should not be). In hallways they are more likely to be seen punching holes in walls rather than kicking, (which is easier anyway).

If you are also having issues in the classrooms, do them as well.

The 9mm villaboard can be screwed directly over the existing plasterboard and is normally finished off with an rebated timber dado rail.

They won't kick this in with any ease!

Hope this helps