The plaster is all off, the lathe will be removed shortly... Is there anything I should know about replacing a lathe & plaster wall with sheets of plasterboard. It seems too straightforward!
Tell me where it's going to go wrong.
Thanks,
Peter
Can't think of anywhere specifically. Once the laths are off, you're just left with the studs, just the same as if you were building a new stud wall from scratch, so the same 'rules' apply as if you were doing so.
Eg:
- if you're not taking plaster/laths of both sides then use screws not nails to fix plasterboard to avoid damaging other side due to vibration. Screws sre normally best anyway.
- stagger the pb sheets at any joins, to avoid propagation of any cracks which may later develop in the overlying plaster skim layer
- whereever possible avoid joins between sheets where they aren't supported by underlying joists/studs; certainly shouldn't be any vertical unsupported joints
David
Agree with all of them.... and:
stick scrim tape over the joints before filling / skimming the wall so they don't crack later!
============== It's worth adding a few extra 'noggins' to ensure that you don't have unsupported joints. The cost and effort will be small and you won't get any bowing at joints.
Cic.
Make sure you use plenty of fastenings, i.e. every 6", you can use 1 1/2" ELH clouts, or 30 mol drywall screws, just don't let the fastner go through the paper face or there'll be no strength. Think about whether you want to run some cables before you fix it all on!
agree with everything that's been said prior AND:
as well as adding noggins, a few more studs may be of use to stiffen up the old ones, either screw then new studs to the old ones or put the new ones in between the old ones. CLS is so cheap it's no worth not doing it whilst you have access and you get a much, much stronger wall than before. HtH
And . . .
Once you've got all the laths off (no 'e' btw), go over the studs making sure there are no nails protruding as it'll upset the positioning of the boards.
I will put in a word of caution from practical experience - not that the others haven't had that of course !
I have been down the same path of removing the plaster and laths (with no 'e' !) only to discover that the plaster 'hooks' (I seem to remember there is a technical term for these) on the reverse side to the laths had all broken off and gone down the gap between the end of the floor boards and the wall - nicely bridging the air gap around the joist ends, etc. Retrieving this plasterwork was extremely tedious and unpleasant. This may not apply in this situation, but ....... It was easily overcome in the other rooms with strips of plywood covering the floor edges.
Rob
I did a bedroom once and the biggest mistake was that I didn't check that the studs were actually in a straight line.
A combination of them not being straight in the first place and/or warping over the years and using screws ensured that when I fitted a dado rail it looked like the proverbial dogs hind leg.
I agree that unless you do both sides of the wall then screws are the only choice to avoid damage, but I think you'll find that nails won't "bend" the plasterboard to fit the undulations in the studs.
With hindsight I would use a string to check for high/low spots and tried to use shims etc to straighten it all out, or am I being too picky?
I recently boarded the ceiling of my double garage and made the same mistake (it was 12 years later), I assumed that because it was new it would provide a nice flat surface, wrong!
cheers Mitch
The studs will be imperial centres and the sheets are metric. Put the extra studding on the 4ft and/or 8ft studs. Either that or lose some of each board. That would be the quickest out.
Theold studs may be a little narrower than conventional studs if Victorian or about that era. So noggins and joists might help if you can get them the same size. If they are uneven surfaces use thicker boards or two layers.
Just think, if I was using Opera instead of Firefox I wouldn't have to use two programmes to save my work. Now that Google have got their act together I might have anothe rgo at it. The cookie handling lost me and the Google problem was too much to handle.
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