I wanted to report this and ask you for your experienced comments.
This weekend I cut a 6′ x 7′ opening in what was the exterior wall of my house to access an addition. The wall is a X stud wall. On the interior side of this smooth ‘normal looking’ wall serval were 1/2 inch dry wall panels 18 inches by 8 feet. The panels are rated as fire proof and seem denser that dry wall is now. The paper is heavier as well. Over that was a layer of cementitious material that must have been toweled on. It is about 5/8″ along the floor and about 1/4″ at the ceiling, making me think that it had flowed or slumped as it dryed. Over that was a skim coat of say 1/8″ plaster. Then a few layers of paint.
I assume this was constructed during the switch over from lath and plaster to drywall.
The exterior side of the studs had 4X8 black faced drywall, that we’ve talked about, and then tar paper and vertical cedar siding, so 4 X 8 drywall was available.
I am interested in finding out where this construction style fits into the history of interior wall construction. Did anyone out there build a wall like that?
Replies
My old house in SoCal, along with other homes that I worked on from that era were plaster finished the same way. The stuff was called B Board or button board. Or, at least, this is what the guys I worked around called it. There were still small pieces of screed lumber around door opening and around the floor that the plasterers would use to guage the plaster to get the thickness correct, but the the rest of the areas were floated by eye to smooth. All inside and out side corners usually were wire which made tying old into new drywall a PIA.
Usually It's easier to rip it all out and start new, at least on each wall. Faster and cheaper in the long run.
Thanks for the response. Yes we have the wire mesh at the corners. What a PITA that is!! I was intriged with the diference in thickness from ceiling to floor.Bob B.An ex-boat builder treading water!
It's called gypsum lath. It replaced wood lath in the 1930s as a substratum for plaster. It was replaced in the 1950s by sheetrock. My house, built in 1949, has it. I'm surprised that a house built as late as 1967 would have it; I guess it's a case of someone hanging on to the way he had always done it.
I think it was called RockLathe
I have a little of that in a stairwell and around the water heaters in a 1926 building. The rest of it is conventional wood lath and three coat plaster. I'm sure it's original because when I demo it, the studs only have nail holes from the big roofing nails that held the b-board, not a bunch of little ones from wood lath, or anything else.
I remember reading, maybe it was the USG web site, that the first experimental sheetrock goes all the way back to 1908.
-- J.S.