This article was very timely as i recently knocked down a plaster and lath wall to expand the landing and put a stud/plasterboard wall up further back. Plasterer finished it up over the weekend and now very happy.
Also good to know I'm not the only one that has had unexpected trouble hanging frames on P&L walls...
We recently hung an entire art show of more than 40 paintings in one (long) afternoon using a new gallery-friendly picture rail system. Such systems are as slick as can be and nearly invisible. Much easier than nails or anchor bolts.
Art galleries heavily rely on rail systems for hanging art, although they tend to have modern amenities (such as the ability to slide laterally) that are missing from residential picture rail moulding.
I love this. I actually have been following a lot of "aesthetic" accounts that complain about modern construction and post beautiful photos of older quaint homes. I also live in a new-build faux Craftsman but can't help but admire the homes and neighborhood in the original part of town.
I was curious if there were any alternatives to dry wall that might look better, and there is rammed earth, but it's not very practical. And went down a similar rabbit hole to discover plaster and lathe is too flammable.
So I guess the only flaw of dry wall is that it is so abundant that is now universal and manufactured so perfectly and the construction process so efficient that it creates too much of the same for us to appreciate it.
As someone who worked in property renovation in for 10 years, I used to marvel at the labour required not just to plaster the walls and ceilings of old buildings but to install the lathe backing.
For a 5m x 5m x 2.5m high room that's 75sqm of lathes. With each one being approximately 40mm wide - let's say 50mm with the gap - you're looking at 1000 lineal metres (one whole kilometre!) of timber for each room, all cut and nailed by hand. I get tired just thinking about it.
I feel silly for not taking into account laths when discussing the labor expense! I would have assumed that laths are mass produced, but that might not be true given the potential lack of uniformity with regards to stud spacing.
Plaster was not gypsum; it was lime based, usually with horsehair as a reinforcement. Gypsum was sometimes used as a finishing coat or as part of the gauging plaster. And, asbestos of course, although asbestos was not used in all plaster and it was used as a reinforcer, with fire retardant characteristics an added bonus.
Gypsum blue board was originally a replacement for wood lath and the transition to thinset coats of lime based plaster. The jump was not straight from wood lath to 4x8 gypsum sheets. Someone figured why not take these 16x32 pieces of blue gypsum and make them big.
Durabond 90, 45, or 20...hot set mud for drywall taping and repairs works fantastically for repairing old plaster. The lime plaster purists say no, it's gotta be lime plaster. They're wrong.
I'm happy to be corrected, but I've seen several sources explaining that plaster is most often composed of gypsum (as well as lime or cement as alternative options). Is that mistaken?
It depends on how far back you go. As I said, gypsum was sometimes used as part of the gauged plaster finish coat as an additive and drying agent. The stuff in your pics is lime based horse hair plaster. Gypsum began being introduced and eventually took over from lime based material because lime takes more time and energy. And of course, being the internet, I'm sure someone will pop up and say I'm wrong.
Traditional plaster, as you probably know, was actually two coats, the scratch coat (no gypsum, basically lime cement) and the finish coat, with the finish coat in later periods being lime and gypsum and called "gauged" plaster. Again, depending on time and location, sometimes just pure lime. Maybe some areas used pure gypsum, but I've never hear of it nor seen it.
Gypsum was often used in pulled moldings and interior decorative details, so that throws some other considerations into the mix.
I've done material analysis on a LOT of plaster and it most often is lime. That doesn't mean it's all lime all the time in all locations though. People built with the materials they could get.
If you got waaaay back, gypsum was used in ancient Egypt, so it's not like gypsum is a new material.
Also, I'm a lime freak. I'm an olde guy, and an old building guy. The miracle of lime is not known enough. People need to understand lime plaster and lime mortars.
Check out limeworks.us. There's a mountain of information on lime and its uses in old buildings.
Another couple of tricks I have learned for finding studs in plaster walls:
- Look for outlets or light switches, which are usually attached to one
- Measure multiples of 16" (or whatever your stud spacing is, hopefully it is regular!) from a known stud
I have also made use of this fun article and calculator for hanging a painting level when you need it to be on studs but don't want to center it over the studs:
The highest you can stack dirt in Minecraft is 257 meters due to the height limit. The highest stack of dirt on Earth is 8849 meters!
(I suppose you could argue that Mt. Everest is mostly rock, not dirt, and dirt has a much shallower angle of repose. It's difficult to find the highest purely-dirt mound anyone has ever made, but from a bit of Googling I suspect it may be lower than 257 meters. So, fine. But I'm sure we *could* go over 257 meters if we were really committed.)
Hmm, or is it? If we allow mechanically stabilized earth, that can go nearly vertical. A base of a few hundred meters wide probably could reach 257 meters in height with an almost unchanged area at the top. Not sure.
Interesting! Correct me if I’m wrong, but my own experience with both drywall and plaster suggests that drywall has made it difficult to impossible to subdivide homes into apartments as people often do with older homes. To much sound comes through and probably too easy to accidentally poke the wall on the other side.
Soundproofing insulation batts help. There's also sound reduction drywall...a thin layer of green goo between two think gypsum layers. It works well, but it's expensive and really heavy. Increasing the drywall from standard 1/2" to 5/8" Type X makes a big difference too.
Thanks! The layout of modern houses isn’t generally conducive to subdividing, either. I suspect this will impede the natural progression of neighborhoods that once existed.
Not boring. Fascinating. Thanks.
Well this was wonderful. Thanks. Nice to know the context we live within. And to appreciate all the workers and inventors who made our lives better.
This article was very timely as i recently knocked down a plaster and lath wall to expand the landing and put a stud/plasterboard wall up further back. Plasterer finished it up over the weekend and now very happy.
Also good to know I'm not the only one that has had unexpected trouble hanging frames on P&L walls...
We recently hung an entire art show of more than 40 paintings in one (long) afternoon using a new gallery-friendly picture rail system. Such systems are as slick as can be and nearly invisible. Much easier than nails or anchor bolts.
Art galleries heavily rely on rail systems for hanging art, although they tend to have modern amenities (such as the ability to slide laterally) that are missing from residential picture rail moulding.
I love this. I actually have been following a lot of "aesthetic" accounts that complain about modern construction and post beautiful photos of older quaint homes. I also live in a new-build faux Craftsman but can't help but admire the homes and neighborhood in the original part of town.
I was curious if there were any alternatives to dry wall that might look better, and there is rammed earth, but it's not very practical. And went down a similar rabbit hole to discover plaster and lathe is too flammable.
So I guess the only flaw of dry wall is that it is so abundant that is now universal and manufactured so perfectly and the construction process so efficient that it creates too much of the same for us to appreciate it.
As someone who worked in property renovation in for 10 years, I used to marvel at the labour required not just to plaster the walls and ceilings of old buildings but to install the lathe backing.
For a 5m x 5m x 2.5m high room that's 75sqm of lathes. With each one being approximately 40mm wide - let's say 50mm with the gap - you're looking at 1000 lineal metres (one whole kilometre!) of timber for each room, all cut and nailed by hand. I get tired just thinking about it.
I feel silly for not taking into account laths when discussing the labor expense! I would have assumed that laths are mass produced, but that might not be true given the potential lack of uniformity with regards to stud spacing.
Fun article...a few quibbles....
Plaster was not gypsum; it was lime based, usually with horsehair as a reinforcement. Gypsum was sometimes used as a finishing coat or as part of the gauging plaster. And, asbestos of course, although asbestos was not used in all plaster and it was used as a reinforcer, with fire retardant characteristics an added bonus.
Gypsum blue board was originally a replacement for wood lath and the transition to thinset coats of lime based plaster. The jump was not straight from wood lath to 4x8 gypsum sheets. Someone figured why not take these 16x32 pieces of blue gypsum and make them big.
Durabond 90, 45, or 20...hot set mud for drywall taping and repairs works fantastically for repairing old plaster. The lime plaster purists say no, it's gotta be lime plaster. They're wrong.
I'm happy to be corrected, but I've seen several sources explaining that plaster is most often composed of gypsum (as well as lime or cement as alternative options). Is that mistaken?
It depends on how far back you go. As I said, gypsum was sometimes used as part of the gauged plaster finish coat as an additive and drying agent. The stuff in your pics is lime based horse hair plaster. Gypsum began being introduced and eventually took over from lime based material because lime takes more time and energy. And of course, being the internet, I'm sure someone will pop up and say I'm wrong.
Traditional plaster, as you probably know, was actually two coats, the scratch coat (no gypsum, basically lime cement) and the finish coat, with the finish coat in later periods being lime and gypsum and called "gauged" plaster. Again, depending on time and location, sometimes just pure lime. Maybe some areas used pure gypsum, but I've never hear of it nor seen it.
Gypsum was often used in pulled moldings and interior decorative details, so that throws some other considerations into the mix.
I've done material analysis on a LOT of plaster and it most often is lime. That doesn't mean it's all lime all the time in all locations though. People built with the materials they could get.
If you got waaaay back, gypsum was used in ancient Egypt, so it's not like gypsum is a new material.
Also, I'm a lime freak. I'm an olde guy, and an old building guy. The miracle of lime is not known enough. People need to understand lime plaster and lime mortars.
Check out limeworks.us. There's a mountain of information on lime and its uses in old buildings.
Another couple of tricks I have learned for finding studs in plaster walls:
- Look for outlets or light switches, which are usually attached to one
- Measure multiples of 16" (or whatever your stud spacing is, hopefully it is regular!) from a known stud
I have also made use of this fun article and calculator for hanging a painting level when you need it to be on studs but don't want to center it over the studs:
https://chcollins.com/100Billion/2021/09/the-hang-it-on-two-studs-calculator/
The "hopefully it is regular!" part is doing a lot of work here
To be fair, you can stack dirt a lot higher in real life than you can in minecraft!
How??
The highest you can stack dirt in Minecraft is 257 meters due to the height limit. The highest stack of dirt on Earth is 8849 meters!
(I suppose you could argue that Mt. Everest is mostly rock, not dirt, and dirt has a much shallower angle of repose. It's difficult to find the highest purely-dirt mound anyone has ever made, but from a bit of Googling I suspect it may be lower than 257 meters. So, fine. But I'm sure we *could* go over 257 meters if we were really committed.)
I meant "stack" purely in the vertical sense. Gaining height by expanding the base is not impressive.
Ah, yeah ok, Minecraft is the clear winner there.
Hmm, or is it? If we allow mechanically stabilized earth, that can go nearly vertical. A base of a few hundred meters wide probably could reach 257 meters in height with an almost unchanged area at the top. Not sure.
Interesting! Correct me if I’m wrong, but my own experience with both drywall and plaster suggests that drywall has made it difficult to impossible to subdivide homes into apartments as people often do with older homes. To much sound comes through and probably too easy to accidentally poke the wall on the other side.
Soundproofing insulation batts help. There's also sound reduction drywall...a thin layer of green goo between two think gypsum layers. It works well, but it's expensive and really heavy. Increasing the drywall from standard 1/2" to 5/8" Type X makes a big difference too.
Thanks! The layout of modern houses isn’t generally conducive to subdividing, either. I suspect this will impede the natural progression of neighborhoods that once existed.