Property Brothers jealousy

[blackhat]

A whole new take on builder grade.

[K. L. McReynolds]

Redid our hall bath, 1965 white/gold flecked 4" square tiles. I never really tried to remove those tiles, just removed the sheet rock.
 

Was a WHOLE lot faster/easier!!

[Robert Adams]

Our house was built in 59/60. They used lumber salvaged from an old large farmhouse that was disassembled. I's all old rough sawn doug fir with lots of growth rings. Hard as a rock heavy as steel and the nails they used back then were crap. Nails from the 50s-60s were hard steel and the heads pop off easily. I have worked on many houses in that era here and all those nails were crap so if you can renail everything or add screws to existing framing. 

 
   I like the way they put in the windows. Aluminum windows and maybe 4 nails per window. Made removal much easier which is hard enough in a brick house as you have to cut the frames into pieces and reach in and cut the nails. Sided houses are much easier to work on. 

    Often I like when the previous guy didn't do it well cause it makes demo faster. Properly installed windows, screwed and glued decking or drywall that is screwed on is much more time consuming to remove. 

     Oh and worst of all are those truly evil people that nail furring strips to the ceiling to hang the drywall to. Just try and find where the ceiling joists are when you have furring strips. Makes light install or hvac vent install a real nightmare as you have no idea where you can put anything.

[EricU]

When I was 10 or thereabouts, my mom decided she wanted a bigger kitchen.  So I got my first opportunity to take out a wall. My parents were not shy about using child labor.  That house was in southwest Virginia and built in the '30s, and the wood was rough-sawn. So as you can imagine, the walls were plastered.  They didn't use the typical wood lath, it was all metal.  Makes for a really difficult and messy demo job.  I still remember being somewhat frustrated about how hard it was to destroy.  I have seen the same lath out at Home Depot. 

Mom later bought an older house that was plastered with some mix of local dirt and horse hair.  That stuff was nasty if you got any in your eyes.  The plaster in the '30s house was much more benign.

[Cooler]

     Oh and worst of all are those truly evil people that nail furring strips to the ceiling to hang the drywall to. Just try and find where the ceiling joists are when you have furring strips. Makes light install or hvac vent install a real nightmare as you have no idea where you can put anything.

Another thing about metal lath:  Stud finders don't work at all.  I drill holes and swing a piece of wire to find the studs.  A real PITA.

[Cub_Cadet_GT]

Cooler, what area of the country are you located?  I ask because I've never heard of metal lath (of course, there's a lot of things I've never heard of).  Is metal a regional thing?  My first thought that this may have been one of those homes sold mail order.  Anyway, just wondering.

On the east coast pretty much every bathroom done before the mid 80's has metal lath with concrete for the shower/tub surround. Some people call it a "mud" wall.

So yea you could say it's pretty common.

[Cooler]

I still don't see where there is any "fun" in demo.  They make it sound like playing pin the tail on the donkey or something. Not fun.  Messy hard work.

[Stwood_]

 




  The concrete is "hardened" (I'm not sure what that means) and even the heaviest .22 load will not penetrate the slab.  Carbide drill bits are good for about 6 to  10 holes and then they are worthless.  

Concrete was probably poured in cold weather, and they used Calcium chloride to speed up the drying process to prevent cold cracks. Calcium chloride will harden up concrete.

[Cooler]

Concrete was probably poured in cold weather, and they used Calcium chloride to speed up the drying process to prevent cold cracks. Calcium chloride will harden up concrete.

Interesting.

I have an entire wall off now and it turns out that this is not traditional lath and plaster but some precursor to sheetrock.  I can see that the rear of the panels are made from about 12" wide panels backed with paper.  But these panels are made from plaster + metal lath + paper.  I  can't tell how long the panels are because all the joints are hidden behind studs. But these are definitely factory made.  I never heard of this before.

[Bob10]

Interesting.

I have an entire wall off now and it turns out that this is not traditional lath and plaster but some precursor to sheetrock.  I can see that the rear of the panels are made from about 12" wide panels backed with paper.  But these panels are made from plaster + metal lath + paper.  I  can't tell how long the panels are because all the joints are hidden behind studs. But these are definitely factory made.  I never heard of this before.

diamond blade is the way to go.  I have taken this stuff out before, cut and pry out