To remove or not to remve...

[craignlisa]

Good morning,

My question pertains to a few interior walls in a 50 year old house that I’m going to paint. The joint seams on these walls are showing thru. However, these joint seams measure 16” x 48”, and on a wall of 12’ it resembles a patchwork quilt or some type of artwork. The next-door neighbour has the same type of house and the same wall irregularity. He has told me of the construction history. 50 years ago the builder used a new type of wallboard that was available. It consisted of 16 x 48 inch panels attached to the studs then covered with a plaster. This process measures a total thickness of 1”. Good sound deadening properties but needless to say this was labour-intensive and was no longer used. It is structurally sound but is ugly.
My question is, do I remove these finished wall surfaces and replace with new gyprok, or do I simply install new gyprok over the walls as is?
I’m a little concerned with mould and mildew (although there is none now) and with good work practices. The neighbour has suggested re-taping the present joints, but there are so many of them I’ll be there for weeks. There are no cracks in any of the joints.

Thanks,

Craig

[kactuskid]

What you have there is called Rocklath, it was used instead of the wood lath. I can tell you from personal experiance that it is very strong and a real pain to get off the walls. I recently had to remove a couple of bathroom walls for someone and had to use a sledge hammer to breake it up off the walls, along with a sawzall. It also has a metal chicken wire attached beneath at all wall/wall and wall/ceiling seams, so this needs to be cut away as well. Then if 1/2" drywall is installed to take its place, there are large gaps at the intersecting walls due to the difference in thickness.

If you decided to cover with 1/4" drywall then you'd need to remove all your basemoulding so the drywall runs behind it, and you'd need extenders installed on all electrical boxs.

You could also just skim coat the entire wall or have it done to smooth it out.

[craignlisa]

Thanks

The only walls that seem to be affected are the outside walls, so I only have a couple that look bad. I'm going to go with the adding of gyprok and using box extenders (not many outlets anyway). The baseboard mouldings will probably crack (very old wood) and I'll make some more of those (maybe 40' or so).

Craig

[kactuskid]

Make sure you use a stud finder to find the wall studs and mark on the floor with a pencil their locations before installing the drywall. You'll also need to use 2" drywall screws to make it through the thickness of all the layers. If I were you, before you attempt this, make sure you have no problems driving drywall screws through this plaster. This stuff is tuff, can't imagine having to install it nowadays.