skim coat versus sheetrock/laminate
have just purchased pre-war with walls and ceilings in bad shape. assumed i would skim coat, but one of the contractors i met with said to sheet rock over the plaster walls instead. he claims that skim coating will not last and cracks will be back within a few months. he also said i have…
have just purchased pre-war with walls and ceilings in bad shape. assumed i would skim coat, but one of the contractors i met with said to sheet rock over the plaster walls instead. he claims that skim coating will not last and cracks will be back within a few months. he also said i have to rip out all the moldings and door frames and replace. what is the general opinion on skim coating versus sheet rock? i want to preserve the integrity of the prewar detail. thank you!
sheet rock is the cheap and lazy contractor’s way out of all that pesky plaster. plaster repair and skim coating can be more expensive in some cases depending on the condition of your place, but what’s more likely is that this contractor isn’t experienced with plaster repair/maintenance and wants instead to do what he has done before on other jobs. my 2 cents is, go with a contractor who has the right mindset, skills, and experience to maintain your property. it doesn’t sound like this is the guy.
I had a number of plaster issues in my house that ranged from ceilings where the plaster had fallen off the lathe to minor cracks and all were successfully fixed without losing the original details. So there’s no doubt it can be done, you just need to find a contractor (whether GC or plasterer) who is restoration minded. Sure, it’s easier for them to rip out the moldings and build you sheetrock box, but if that’s not what you want then keep looking.
The best way is to mesh the walls (a flexible mesh fabric is attached to the old plaster), paint plaster weld which is sort of like primer for the skim-coat, and then skim coat over that. If you use the mesh, the cracks should not come back.
I would definitely vote in favor of keeping the pre-war detail. It is what makes the apartment feel right, even if you go with simple and modern decor.
I have to agree with Mopar: if the idea is to preserve pre-war details, sheetrock isn’t a good idea.
However, just in case there’s no details to preserve (or you’re ready to redo all the details 🙁 ).
For the walls, reframing with 1-5/8″ metal studs and 1/2″ sheetrock might be an option. For dead ceilings, we have those, you can either build a plane surface with furring channels, or go for a suspended ceiling system with Tees and wall angles (gives you the option to beef up insulation). Then sheetrock can be screwed on the Tees or channels. You will loose about 4″ with that last one.
This is obviously not for everybody. But just in case your situation warrants it, these might be valid options to consider.
I hired a plasterer (who happens to be Russian) who came highly recommended on this site; his name is Alex. His website: http://www.decorplasterwork.com. We hired him to restore the plastered walls and ceilings in our lvng and dining rooms in our historic Newark NJ American foursquare home. He did excellent work and gave us a resonable price. Lastly, he is often in high demand. Good luck
Hi my name is Dee Finley, I am a second generation Irish plasterer. I have excellent refereces available. I could take a look and give you an estimate.
If you search plaster in the forum, I think you will find some helpful answers to your questions.
Good Luck!
deefinite@gmail
Re bathrooms, it’s a good idea to use licensed contractors and plumbers, especially if you live in a coop. This doesn’t always cost more and can actually save you money in the long run. I wish we had used Gavin Young Maloney for our work, but I didn’t meet him until we were nearly done.
Mary, we’ve hired a number of different people to do skim coating, but on the whole we deal directly with subcontrators.
Re painting, the big companies have a lot of overhead and aren’t set up to do small jobs. Try to find an individual who has an assistant or two and who is experienced and professional (fast, neat). If the walls are in good shape, ask for one coat, no prime, to keep costs down. Figure on paying something in the area of $1 to $2 a square foot (floor footage). Or think in terms of how long the job will take and what a reasonable wage is.
Mopar, sounds like you’re hiring a day laborer and managing the process from beginning to end and not hiring a company to handle the job as a whole. I recently got quotes for painting my apartment and the price was 8,000 (this included minor plaster repairs and all paint materials). I gasped and put the job on hold. I’d love to do my bathroom over but friends are telling me to figure 20,000 and up. I’d love to hear your estimate for a bathroom and see how I can tape into your labor pool to execute the job.
This is the absolute cheapest approach taken by flippers with absolutely no knowledge of how to maintain a prewar. It is not a good idea. For one thing, it will make the space appear smaller, remove the pre-war detail, make walls stick out to level of the baseboards, etc. Just forget about it.
Find an actual plasterer who is an experienced plasterer and that’s all they do. Skim coating is expensive but if you find the right person, you should be able to do it for very roughly about $2 a square foot (of floor space, not calculating walls and ceilings). If you were hiring the very best, you could spend $2,000 on one ceiling alone, but if you’re doing a whole place, and find the right person, you could pay $2,000 for one floor (about 900 sf) with three coats. Or $4,000. It’s worth paying up front to have the job done correctly so it will last.
If you find the right person and you pay them enough, and they do the job correctly, the imperfections should not return. We do have some slight imperfections that have resurfaced over a year, but we knew going in that we were not paying top dollar for perfection.
It’s hard to explain succinctly, but there are different methods used by different types of tradespeople. You need to find an actual plasterer who knows how to deal with plaster in the areas where it has become detached from the lathe. THis is different from merely taping over one crack, which is what painters and more general semi skilled laborers do. Also their actual skim coating technique has to be good, and this varies from person to person and depends on their skill and experience.
One other thing: If you have a plaster wall or ceiling in decent condition but it has one giant sagging bit or hole, it is valid to patch with sheetrock and then skillfully tape, although on ceilings there is always a danger the seams will show slightly. It depends on how much of a fuss budget you are.
Ripping out door frames and moldings is totally nuts.