How about some tips for the fastest way to remove wood lath and plaster from ceilings and walls?
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Does neatness count at all?
If not:
A mattock (root axe, flat blade) works fast. Fiberglass handle with protective pad is a good idea. Hook it behind lathe, and pull, or pry against studs as needed.
If you can work the ceiling from above (safer, less debris falling on head), a sledgehammer works fast. Often no need to swing hammer if it is heavy enough. Just drop it straight down on strapping (if there is strapping) near joist like a pile driver. Use a short hammer for tight areas. Will crash down in big chunks.
I wear a n-100 respirator and clear ski goggles. The dust is insane.
I am a partial DIY and I've done one wall in a bedroom and a complete room in my house. I don't have much to offer in way of removal, I used a wide prybar and claw hammer but would like to offer a few suggestions on prep. and protection. I strongly, strongly! suggest a well fitted half or full mask n100 respirator your lungs will appreciate it. The trouble with a lot of the paper mask types is they do not seal properly and you end up coughing up dust for the next couple of days and they usually cause your eye wear to fog up. If you plan on maintaining the flooring I used 1/8" 4x8' boards, the plaster and lathes with nails really comes down hard and will really damage the floor. Because of the incredible amount of dust make sure you seal the room very very well from the rest of the house. I used 6mil poly with that red tape (sheathing tape I think it's called). If you are only doing part of a room I used a system found in FHB in the tips & techniques section. What I did was cut sheets of 6mil poly to 1-2feet longer than the height of the room line them up side by side (to measure the width of the room) and sealed them together with the red tape. Wrap and staple the top to a strip of 1x3 (same for bottom). This can be done outside, then you role the whole thing up, bring into the room, unroll and with a helper place the top against the ceiling and spring into place a couple of 1x3s (cut just a little longer than the heigth of the room). I think the article was printed sometime early 2003 and it describes this system quite well.
Best of luck, most people suggested I don't do it but I wasn't willing to sacrifice any real estate to insulate on the inside of my walls. Just be prepared for lots of dust.
What CSNOW said is good advice. In addition, have lots of boxes on hand for the rubble. You'll need a coal-style shovel, as this stuff does not come off in big chunks.
Be prepared to deal with the worst mess you've ever seen. And the dust mask mentioned by CSNOW is absolutely mandatory.
Remove the plaster first as it is easier to shovel into buckets without the lath. It will fracture fairly easily and then just seperate it from the lath allowing it to just pile up on the floor. If you remove lath and plaster together it is a real pain to pick up and dump in buckets. Once the plaster is removed its just a simple pulling off of the lath with the hook of a pry bar and bundling up the lath in neat piles to carry out. "One measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions"
I couldnt agree more with woodrow much much easier knocking the plaster off first shovel it into trash cans take it out,lay the trash cans on their sides and throw your lath in or like woodrow said bundle it.
I like to hit the plaster with the side of my hammer perpendicular to the lath and get the lath flexing and the plaster flys off.
Wear eye protection and a good respirator a hat too longsleeves and gloves close off the room etc etc also if theres a window in the room I put a big fan in it and exhuast the dust out ,just be sure the neighbors windows are closed
RobinHood-- Hire somebody! ( I'm only half kidding- its a miserable job better left to someone else, anybody else)
One more good piece of equipment is one of those full face shields like you use for lathes or grinders. that over a mask and goggles, keeps the goggles clearer, keeps the crap off you face and is just more comfortable. we wear a backwards ball cap to help keep the crap out of our collars and the face shield helps keep crap from falling in your shirt front too. we use the shields all the time now for any overhead messy work.
Steve
S.J.MERRETTE Carpentry & Construction • Robesonia, PA
Nothing is impossible...It just hasn't been done yet.
Where at in Robesonia?
That's where I live, too.
Dan
In addition to the recommendations given, I'll offer that after making a small hole in the wall or ceiling, I like to use a 2x4 as a long prybar to remove large sections at a time. With lathe removed from one side of a wall, it's easy to strike the other side of the wall with a sledge or any other implement of destruction. As someone mentioned, separating the lathe from the plaster greatly helps in disposing of it. Empty drywall joint compound buckets are helpful in transporting the plaster to the dumpster.
Dusk mask a must!
All great info, Just remember that stuff is nasty so don't cheap out and use a crappy face/filter mask as stated above. Also a good idea is to place one of those large blue filters used for forced hot air systems and A/C and place it over the exhaust side of the fan or just let all that dust settle on the neighbors house. I no longer do demo, I got smart and now sub it all out to demo crews. Too old now anyway to be a grunt."One measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions"
If the old plaster has wood slats, it will most likely have chesse cloth embedded in it. This stuff is harder than most bricks currently manufactured. I suggest you use a masonary blade with an old circular saw to score the plaster. You can minimize the vast amount of dust by using a pressurized sprayer to keep the plaster damp. a helper can follow close behind the circular saw with the sprayer while scoring. Make a donation to the local high school band (or other charity) so you can get some fresh muscle into the job.
If you have hard wood floors, be sure to put down some plywood first before you take off any plaster. I didn't and found that the plaster is a lot more abrasive than it looks. This weekend the master bedroom will be de-plastered and I have plenty of plywood (and some sheets of drywall) to put on the floor first.
It takes a little longer to separate the plaster from the lathe, but the clean up goes so much faster when you use this method. Keep the area clean. Do just one wall, then clean up all the debris, then do the next wall. Otherwise you end up with 2ft of plaster on the floor and it is really hard to move around.
Don't fill your trash cans too high with plaster. It is very heavy.
Rather than plywood use luaun. It's technically 1/8th inch plywood, is light, and cheap. Use duct tape at the seams and at the perimeter. You don't want anything getting under the luaun.
John
A fireman friend of mine lent me a tool they use for tearing out walls during fires. I don't know what it's called but it weighs about 30 # and looks kind of like a giant crowbar. When you point it at a ceiling or wall, a piece of metal about 6" long is sticking off the end of it at a 90 degree angle. You punch it through the plaster, turn it and start pulling. The other side looks like a huge nail puller and works great for getting metal lath of the wall. Most of the time is spent cleaning the mess off the floor.
Can also use 'sound board', which I saw yesterday for like $5 per sheet.
I start by pulling the baseboards and vacuuming the room. Then for wood floors, I lay down old newspaper maybe 3-5 sheets thick, followed by crappy old luan paneling. If existing carpet is your floor protection, just lay the luan. You need the hard luan surface to enable shoveling up the plaster.
Before starting the big mess, I do whatever sheet plastic dust barrier work I'm going to do, and then put on my surplus Israeli gas mask from the first gulf war. Around here the neighbors are very sensitive about dust.
For working from the finished side of the wall, I start with a straight blade "D" handle shovel and use it to break a starter gouge and scrape the plaster off the wood lath. I do the bottom 12 - 18" first, before the plaster from above makes that region inaccessible. Then I do the rest, standing to one side so I don't get bonked on the head by the plaster. Doing the second side of the wall, it's easier to use the small hand sledge to knock the lath loose and the plaster falls in the next room. Again, do the bottom first to keep from blocking the lowest few strips of lath.
To get rid of the old plaster, I use 5 gallon buckets. First I put in "kitchen" size nominally 13 gallon plastic trash bags followed by a gallon or two of water. Be sure you have buckets that don't leak. The bags aren't strong enough to hold the material, but they do create a release layer. Then I shovel the old plaster into the buckets and tamp it down. With the buckets nearly full, I twist the tops of the bags shut, but without a wire tie, and carry it outside. Two buckets make a nice balanced load. There I flood it the rest of the way with water, and close it with a tie before putting it in the dumpster. If I do that gently enough, most of the plastic bags will stay intact. Did I mention that the neighbors here are very concerned about dust? The first time I took out a wall here I didn't do the water thing, and when they tipped the dumpster, it looked like a bomb went off.
-- J.S.
RH, I've removed plaster in a couple of 100+ year old houses. This plaster was soft, sanded mix with horsehair as the binder over wood lath. I liked removing the plaster from the lath first, but at times would hook a prybar through the lath and pull large sections down at once. Separating plaster from lath will make clean up easier, it's hard to shovel plaster with wood lath mixed in. You will figure it out and find your own preferred method. Flat shovels and side-walk scrapers are often handy. If you can possibly construct a chute out of a window and into a dumpster, your back will thank you. Old panelling is good for this.
The best recommendation I can add to this discussion is to exhaust the plaster dust from the room. I use a cheap box fan. Get one from Wal Mart or somewhere cheap. Plaster dust is hard on motors. Prop it in a window farthest from the door so that it blows air out, close the other windows, except maybe to crack a window on the other side of the room. My objective is to blow the dusty air out of the room and make sure that if air is going to leak in through the door from the rest of the house, that the air is coming into the room. Close windows on the same side of the house so that the dust air isn't just sucked back into otherwise clean rooms. It's nice to have the dust clear rapidly as you work, and this will do it for you.