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Where the plaster has already started coming off in slabs, then you carefully remove any bits that are still hanging on but are beyond saving. Or, if you lack that capacity … Fixing your Walls So that’s the background, but the real question is how to remedy the situation! Now you’re staring at it saying “I’m pretty sure this doesn’t look exactly right any more.”
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The keys holding the plaster on to the walls slowly started cracking, and the sheet of plaster once held so nicely to the lath by the plaster keys started to become a little more free-standing, then it started to crack and became a little more free and a little less standing, falling away from the broken keys. There were a few minor tremors, both natural and man made when they replaced the road and the sidewalks.
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The house settled a bit in to it’s foundation. The adults did a little bit of that as well. Kids jumped on the bed & the floors, and they also banged lots of stuff in to the walls. Well, sure … but … Over the decades, the walls get bumped in to. Then later they might apply a second base (‘brown’) coat, and they’d certainly apply a thin top coat of very hard plaster to finish the wall. When it hardened, this plaster between and behind the lath created ‘keys’ that held the plaster in place. Plaster ‘keys’ in lathĪ thick first coat, or ‘scratch coat’ of plaster was then applied to the lath, squeezing through it so that some of the plaster oozed through the gaps between the pieces of lath and drooped down behind the back of the lath a bit. These were nailed to the studs with gaps of around a quarter inch between them. Lath is simply strips of wood, rough cut, generally around an inch to an inch and a half wide, by around a quarter inch thick. Maybe some ducts, but that’s really all beside the point!Īs a base for the plaster, lath was then nailed horizontally across the wall studs. Back in the days of plaster, you’d get your electrical (knob & tube?) & plumbing in there, but usually nothing else at this stage. Today, the wall cavity may then be outfitted with electrical cables, plumbing lines, HVAC ductwork, network & home automation wiring, insulation, vapour barrier, etc. Stud wall frames were built, in a similar manner to today’s framed walls. Before the advent of large convenient sheets of drywall, walls were hand plastered. A Quick Study in the Anatomy of the Plaster & Lath Wall:Ī very brief summary of the construction of plaster walls & ceilings helps give some background to the situation. If those bits of plaster haven’t actually fallen off the wall yet, it will be easier to fix now than in a little while, when they have actually fallen off. This is a situation that is best dealt with sooner than later – it’s not going to improve by itself, and it’s quicker and easier to deal with at an earlier stage. Why does it feel that way? Because they are! When you gently push on those areas, you find ‘soft spots,’ where sheets of plaster seem to be floating independent of the rest of the solid wall below. You can tell when sections of your wall or ceiling are about to fall off when you see areas that are protruding or bubbling out from where they were, sometimes with cracks or ridges along the outlines. That’s not what we’re discussing here – we’re talking about when big chunks of plaster have either become detached from the lath, or are about to fall off altogether. can all be mended in a similar fashion to your now-standard drywall walls. Standard little nicks, picture hanging holes, small holes etc. So, what gives with this gravity challenged plaster & how do you deal with that? That’s the focus of this tip. The question of how to repair plaster walls tends to arise, nervously, around these times. Sometimes a section of the plaster has fallen off completely. Sometimes this exhibits itself as a section or sheet of the wall / ceiling loosening from the underlying lath. After numerous decades of faithful service, the old lath and plaster walls and ceiling in your home have started to fail.