We are doing a double bath remodel on a local home. Small ranch style house but built well in a good area and was originally built as a down size home by a local funeral director.
The walls appear to be plaster on a fiberboard, like black insulboard but it has a tar like backing facing the stud cavity. Wire mesh in the corners. Looks like 2 foot strips of the stuff hung horizontally. Ceilings and walls. Its not rock glued to the insul boarde either.
I have seen a drywall like product used around here hung in the same manner with mesh corners and plastered over but never insulboard. Any ideas what it is? DanT
Replies
It may be an exterior type of board that was used for a lath for the plaster. Is it a gypsum material or is it purely a fiber? I have a similar sounding product on my ranch but it's on the outside of the house, it's black, a gyp material like sheetrock, and it was used as the actual sheathing. There was a type of fiber board for interior that was used around that time called 'upson board'. Or it could be one of those flash in the pan type products that came along during that time and was used on your house.
It sounds like the old Cellotex that was used for sheathing in the "early days" (50's and 60's), but that didn't come in 2' widths, and it said "Cellotex" right on it--black tar on one side and tan fiber on other. Maybe they just used it inside and ripped it to 2'.
Thanks for the replys. I don't know, maybe. The wall come out to 1 inch thick. I have just never seen plaster applied directly to a fiber board, guess I can't think of why you can't do it though. DanT
Might be the old button board. A more modern version of lath.
My condo wall are plaster. Dates from '62. As I understand it, they would nail this stuff up, plaster over and the plaster would ooze thru the holes and form buttons on the back to key it in. It has worked very well for the last 42 years.
I've seen that in two 30's era houses, one i'm working on right now. The only thing I can figure is it was easier than lath but before wallboard backing.
Maybe thats it. This house is a late 30's early 40's house so sounds like the same deal. I have look through the house and saw no cracking or separation so must work ok. DanT
Its holding together pretty good in this house too. I have a few small cracks and one sag in the ceiling but I found a bird living in the attic so that explains the sag.
That black fibreboard is probably what we call Black Joe up here. It is likely ½"-thick pressed paperboard impregnated with bituminous tar similar to felt. It's used as an inexpensive exterior sheathing in some type of residential construction, is weatherproof for up to two years, and meets code as structural sheathing if combined with gyprock on the interior side of the studs, believe it or not....
It's available in 4'-wide sheets in various lengths. I'm not aware of a 2'-wide version but it could exist, I suppose.
Any plaster/gypsum/stucco/parging applied to it would have to be backed with wire lathe nailed through the board into the framing, seems to me, or it wouldn't stay in place very well. That is the way it's handled by people who do that in my area. I personally prefer plywood....
Dinosaur
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