We just bought a house built in the 1950’s. We’re planning to do a gut renovation and add a second floor. We just signed a contract for the majority of the work. However, I’ve decided to do the demolition of the the interior walls on the first floor (remove all the non supporting walls and get the plaster off the supporting walls). We’re having the builder add a new header for the supporting wall. Our aim is to have a completely open (except for the “powder room”) first floor and all the bedrooms and full baths on the second floor. The house is a cape. The builder is very highly recommended and couldn’t be more reputable or “friendly.”
The only issue I have is that the interior walls on the first floor are wire lathe with a cement scratch coat and then plaster. Am I biting off too much to strip these walls to the studs or should I hire the builder to do it? I’m looking forward to the demo. I have worked with wire lathing before.
What would be the best way to attack the walls — sledge hammer and clean up the residue or make some cuts using a reciprocating saw and them using the sledge hammer?
Thanks in advance.
–Steve.
Replies
Whether you`re biting off more than you can chew is more your call. Demolition is a hellofalotta work.....but with enough energy and time, just about anyone can do it.
Two words of caution. Don`t skimp on the safety gear....i.e. hard hat, safety glasses, gloves, boots,dust masks, etc......and make sure you`ll be able to get it done on time to work with your contractors schedule. 3/4s complete on his starting date may seem like close enough to you, but he`ll be planning to start his framing. Be sure to find out EXACTLY what he expects to see when he walks in the door. I`ve allowed HOs to do their own demolition prior to my starting a job, only to find their definition of complete varies greatly from my own.
As to how to go about it, I`ve found that busting up the plaster itself and hauling it outta the house and outta your way makes taking the wire lath off easier. Sledge hammers are almost too big as you end up poking through the lath when all you really want to do is break the plaster free. I usually use a hammer. Starting at the ceiling and working my way down the wall in a straight line, I attack in about four foot sections. Clean up as you go along so you`re not tripping over debris or trying to force step ladders level through piles of plaster.
Good luck!
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Steve
The best way I'v found to demo wire lath is go between the studs with an ax. After you've cut top to bottem, peel the wire down to the floor in a rolling motion by hand(good gloves a must) a ripping hammer and a medium bar are good, too. When one side is done I get a 4 ft length of 2x4 and use it as a hammer hitting the wire from the back with the end of the board close to the stud. Nothing easy or clean about this job, but it's one way to save some money. Don't forget to slide your hammer up and down each stud, you'll find every nail you missed by hitting it.
Andy302
Thanks for all the advice. I was planning to wear masks, goggles, gloves -- all the safety stuff. My hands are key to my profession, so I want to keep them in "one piece."
BTW, my uncle used to own a construction company. He did work for VERY particular customers. He looked at a tiling job that I did in my old house and said he would never be able to hire me. He said the work I did was too good -- I probably took too much time to do it.
--Steve.
skip the masks and wear a cartiridge respirator, it is so nice not to be blowing chunks of concrete out of your nose at the end of the day .. not to mention your lungs .. the first time you change the cloth prefilters and see the crap they collect you will appreciate what they have done for your lungs!!
OK, lets try this again. I just posted a reply and is said I didn't have any text... YES I DID! Then it deleted everything when I tried to revise.
But anyway... A lot of the areas I'm tearing up are too tight to get a wheelbarrow into. In which case I use one of these cans:
View ImagePictured one is only 30 gal, but I think the last one I used was a 40-50gal one. Make sure you get a heavy-duty one. Heavy-duty ones can take serious abuse.
Then add a screw-on type dolly:
View Image
I've had this setup loaded so heavy that two guys were barely able to hoist it into the dumpster. But if your setup allows, I would suggest rigging a ramp that runs to about a foot short of the top of the dumpster. Then just wheel the can up and use the foot lip to pivot the can into the dumpster (make sure to hold on to a wheel). Adjust the ramp height to whatever is comfortable. The key is to make it minimal work to dump it.
I occasionally wonder if one of these
View Image
might be handy. I just can't justify the $400 price tag though.jt8
"Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. " --Theodore N. Vail
Be sure you have a place to put the debris, like a really big dumpster. I took out JUST the inside of three closets, and there was over two full sized pickup loads.
Figure on carrying the plaster out in 5 gallon buckets filled about 80% full (unless you can wheelbarrow straight into the dumpster).
What Andy302 said. Go get an unsharpened hatchet from the hardware store (or discount store). It doesn't need much of an edge anyway, not that one would last.
Not a bad idea to get a bunch of visqueen now, and tape off upstairs as much as possible. Look into renting a big fan for getting the air pressure i nthe first floor as low as possible, too.
Not a bad idea to plan out the where and how of lugging the debris out. Being able to get a wheelbarrow in means not dragging a trash can down the hall and out the door. If you 'have' to use a trashcan, get one you'll never miss if it goes in the dumpster on the last load. Also, strapping the can to a dolly will make for an easier life. Best situation has debris out one door, air & pedestrain traffic in another.
Ok, and since no one else said so, protect the floors and walls. Plastic on dunnage blankets on plastic over rosin paper is what I use for exit path-ing. The person driving the barrow or trashcan dolly will be tired & sore, and sweat will be dripping in their eyes--they're going to ding a wall or some trim, or something that should not be dinged.
I've actually found it's better to start farthest away from the debris out exit and work to the dumpster than vice versa. This, only for being able to visqueen off the "done" work to help limit the spread of dust & grit.
Beware of grit on shoes and tires!!! Have someone (or the machine) answer the phone. Put something to scrub shoes on at the transition to upstairs (or limit-of-work-this-time). Clean tires & shoes at the end of the day, too. Since this is your house, go through the classifieds, and see if you can find a washer, cheap. Having a dedicated washer to rinse plaster-debris-covered clothes means not needing a new drum on the "good" washer (or not being banned from half the laundromats in town <g>).
All good advice here,especially a real mask and a fan.
Whomever had the 'axe-tip',thanx.Never thought about that.
Watch for electric wires,too.If it were easy....a caveman could do it.
Demo can be a lot of fun.
Instead of mere dust masks, look for war surplus gas masks. They're much more comfortable, and filter much better.
You need something on the floor that you can shovel debris off of. I use old luan paneling over several layers of old newspaper.
Start by pulling the baseboards. You might also want to demo the bottom 6" or more first, if you find that crud from above blocks your way later. But with wire or expanded metal lath, working top down may be better. That way the weight of the material helps you pull it down.
If you're going to be keeping any of the original plaster, scoring the boundaries with a diamond saw and then carefully breaking out the edge and cutting the metal can save you extra work putting things back together.
-- J.S.
I did a complete renovation on my second floor. The main floor will be done in the Summer of 2006. I bought a shop air cleaner for about $450 CND and ran it on High during the demolition. Everyone used dust masks but the air cleaner made a huge difference to the dusk lingering in the air. A quick coffee break and the air was as clean as if you left the room overnight. The air cleaner has a 12"x24"x1" prefilter. I mounted it on a cart and rolled it from room to room.
When I'm finished the renovations, I plan to hang the air cleaner in my future garage. If you look at the internet, the number of sites that are medical related should justify the expense of such a specialty device.
Good luck!
Douglas in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
If you're not doing much beyond this one job, you might want to go for the poor man's air cleaner: A cheap box fan with a matching size furnace filter taped to the ingoing side. Works OK while it lasts, but definitely not a long term professional tool.
-- J.S.
Hire four day laborers! For Four days and four packs of beer at the end of the job in a bucket of ice.
Be for warned
andy
The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
When we meet, we say, Namaste'..it means..
Andy hit the nail on the head.
use all the great advice and supervise, while getting something productive done in the garage...like polishing the sportscar!
I would prefer to work extra hours and pay someone than to do that kind of work to save a few bucks....I think you'd be money ahead in the end.Jake Gulick
[email protected]
CarriageHouse Design
Black Rock, CT
Get a mattock (sometimes called a "root axe").
It has a flat blade perpendicular to the handle on one side, and a pick or small axe blade on the other.
Hook it behind the lathe, and pry outward using the stud as the fulcrum.
Great tool.
Wire lathe is tough stuff, and has scary sharp edges. Be careful.
Sections of wire rendered bare can be cut with shears or a grinder to make them more managable.
1. Pound a hole through the plaster in one spot to gauge the thickness, including the lathe.
2. Get an old beater of a circular saw, and put an el-cheapo blade in it. Set the saw depth to be a tad more than the thickness of the plaster and lathe combined.
3. Locate your studs, then run a cut from as low down as you can to as high up as you can on each side of the stud. Then cut horizontally from one cut to the other. (Wear ear plugs while doing this; it's gonna sound more like Hendrix-does-Scriabin than J.S. Bach's Wachet auf.)
4. Get out of the way while it falls to the floor....
5. Pry off the stuff still tacked to the face of the studs with a ripping hammer.
Yer Done.
Oh, yeah...turn off the power to all circuits in the area in which you're working, and run the saw on an extension from some other part of the house. Just in case you go a little too deep or the electrician went a little too shallow....
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
One word of caution on 50 year nails and wood. HARD.
I don't mean a little tough, I mean hard wood that grips the nails like the jaws of h#ll. Get a BIG, LONG prybar to remove them.
I worked for a few months early this year moving window/door/wall locations in a 50's ranch that just about killed by Estwing Prybar. I could hang from the bar on some of those 16 pennies in the framing.
Troy Sprout
Square, Level & Plumb Renovations
Thank you all for the suggestions. I will do as everyone suggests. We've been off the air for a few days, but last night SWMBO and I decided to rip down a wall just to be sure.
It seems that some of the walls are wire lathe, but most are just 50 yr old drywall. So we lucked out. The town took away all the waste -- about 4 or 5 bags and 2 or 3 cans (the Rubbermaid Brutes). So luck is on our side.
It's dusty as h__l but I'm going to Lowes this PM to get the hang up dust collector which will then have a home in my shop along with my cyclone. So nothing will go to waste.
I also brought in my wood maul (just a real heavy, dull ax). So this will be easy.
The studs are also coming down.
Once again thanks for all helpful suggestions.
--Steve.
Definition: Hell (n.); A place where demolition and renovations will be carried out without the help of a Sawzall or big ol' crowbars.-------------------------------
People are entitled to their own opinions; People are not entitled to their own truth.Jacob