Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:
On 10/31/2017 7:40 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
Electric Comet writes:


drywall is a lot of work and i think next time i will do paneling or
maybe lath and plaster

Ha. Ha Ha Ha. That's funny.


He is from the persuasion of people that believe if they can think it
they can do it.

On its face it's easy to do, especially for a single person. Perhaps even
more forgiving. Doing it well so it doesn't look like your 5-year-old took
point... that's an entirely different matter.

I keep meaning to practice on some exposed lathe underneath my staircase.

The previous owner of my house cheaped-out fixing a leaky southerly wall of
a stairwell. His contractors didn't fix the leaks properly. Then they used
drywall to replace the plaster on that entire wall.

I've had (or I think I've had) two of the biggest culprits fixed, but
there's still too much moisture penetration on that wall. The drywall is too
damp and beginning to sag--probably didn't hang it right. An adjacent wall
is still the original plaster+wood lathe, and even with a leaky window (took
awhile to realize) the only serious damage was some peeling paint and a
small, contained area of plaster that needed patching. (Painter got to do
that; not me

At some point I'm going to have to take that drywall down just to see what
the previous homeowner was hiding. And I'm definitely not going to put
drywall back up. The house is too old (1926) and passes too much moisture
(near the ocean). That's fine for plaster, but not kind to drywall. Removing
all the cladding (3 sides clapboards, 1 side stucco) and re-wrapping[1] the
house would be way too expensive (can't even entertain that idea) and
unnecessary.

There are good plasterers here. I live in a major city where there's enough
work to keep the skill alive, not just for high-end restoration work.
(Though I suppose any job putting up new plaster might be considered
high-end.) But they're still expensive given the amount of time involved. So
I may give it a go myself if I can find the time to practice first. I also
need to parge[2] the foundation, which I'm hoping will help me learn some.


[1] The house is wrapped in tar paper, but it's not as impermeable as the
modern stuff, and at 90 years old probably no longer as impermeable as it
once was.

[2] I think the previous owner tried to parge with a portland cement
mixture, which failed horribly. (Pretty sure he was trying to hide some
disintegration.) AFAIU, portland cement is much less water permeable than
the cement used in the old foundation. The parge coat is popping off in
large chunks. The parge coat needs to have the same permeability as the
concrete so the water and salts can pass through to the surface. The parge
coat becomes a sacrificial layer, I guess, extending the life of the
foundation. Presumably a bad parge coat hastens disintegration. Like with
the stairway wall, using modern products piecemeal is just a really bad
idea.