What's the point of skirting boards?

20 Oct.,2023

NOOKS AND CRANNIES

What's the point of skirting boards?

THIS DATES back to the days when gentlemen wore spurs and the walls and wall coverings were at risk should the gent stand too close.
Paul Yates (Chartered Surveyor), Welwyn Garden City, Herts.

HISTORICALLY, skirting boards were necessary when walls were wet-plastered to cover the junction of floor and wall and account for the difficulty in achieving a neat stop edge to the plaster at the bottom of the wall; architraves around doors had a similar purpose. Now that we have nice neat sheets of machine-cut plasterboard and metal edge beads for plaster, there is no point to skirtings whatsoever. We cling on to them because of our sentimental fondness for "period" detail, and incompetent mass-market house builders like them because they allow for a poor standard of workmanship and higher speed. We "trendy minimalist" architects have eliminated skirtings and architraves in favour of a small recessed "shadowgap" detail which neatly articulates the junction between wall and floor, making wall planes appear to "float" over continuous floor planes. There is an argument that skirtings protect the wall finish from damage by vacuum cleaners, etc. This is rubbish; it is much better to avoid hitting your house in the first place.
Richard Lindley, London NW1 .

RICHARD LINLEY is an impractical purist. Without the generous skirtings in our house, assorted bikes, toy cars, push-chairs, and vacuum cleaners would long since have reduced the lowest part of the internal walls to rubble.
Christopher Lambton, Edinburgh (cjlambton@compuserve.com)

NONE of your correspondents seem to have noted one of the most important functions of the much maligned skirting board - that of concealing the necessary gap between wooden floorboards and masonry to prevent transmission of damp and to allow for expansion and contraction of the boards with temperature and humidity. The disparaging comments made by your self-confessed trendy minimalist "architect" would suggest he seldom pilots his own vacuum cleaner. If he did he would doubtless discover the near impossibility of doing so without collision with his small recessed "shadow gap" - itself a convenient hiding place for dust and lost buttons. Even in Italy, spiritual home of minimalists and marble floors, they have skirting board, and they call it "battiscopa" - roughly translates as "(where the) broom hits".
C H Rasmussen, London W4.

To give you a genuine back-ache from painting them, thus justifying Monday off after a weekend's decorating.
Steve Simmons, Frimley, England

If we have to have the damn things, why can't they be simply clipped on instead of being nailed so that you can't get them off without destroying the wall and the wood? And why can't they have channels for wiring at the back?
John Peat, Balsall Common, UK

The point of a skirting has changed and will change with tastes in decorating. It was developed from wood panelling as a way of edging plasterwork. However it changed its use with the fasion for fitted carpets which if the skirting is lifted can be laid so that the joint is horizontal and not easily seen. With the current vogue for polished wood floors and dry lining with shadow gaps its use does seem pointless, but try and lay a carpet without one.
Adrian Bunting, Brighton, E Sussex

To give my boyfriend something to kick and break his toe on when his computer crashes.
Christine Whyte, Glasgow, Scotland

You can tell the age of the house by the size of the skirting boards, pre-war houses have much bigger ones!!
Pam Southcombe, Stockport, Cheshire

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