Century home (More than 100 year's old) with Plaster and lathe walls : Advice & Suggestions

That is not a straight forward answer.
What province are you? What are the heating bills like? What is the heating source? Will you be here long term in order for the renovations to pay for themselves?
What you can afford also comes into it.
What is the exterior siding like? If it needs to be replaced soon, perhaps insulating the exterior walls will be more cost efficient.

Like you said, if you start opening up walls, you could find lots of other issues. it's not a problem if you're not getting permits, but it sounds like you are, in which case you may need to address those issues. You'll likely also get into asbestos testing before any reputable contractor will tear the walls open.

If you're going down the route of opening the walls and redoing them make sure you've got like 100% contingency.
Once the walls are open, might as well rewire(done), replumb, re-everything...

If you bought a century home, I'd just patch up the walls and live with it. All these details matter on what you should do..

Shaner wrote: ↑ That is not a straight forward answer.
What province are you? What are the heating bills like? What is the heating source? Will you be here long term in order for the renovations to pay for themselves?
What you can afford also comes into it.
What is the exterior siding like? If it needs to be replaced soon, perhaps insulating the exterior walls will be more cost efficient.

Like you said, if you start opening up walls, you could find lots of other issues. it's not a problem if you're not getting permits, but it sounds like you are, in which case you may need to address those issues. You'll likely also get into asbestos testing before any reputable contractor will tear the walls open.

I'm a 2nd plan type of guy.
Yes, you can run into more 'issues', but taking a century old home and rebuilding to conform to current standards of safety, energy efficiency, etc. can have the old shack last another 100 years.
Our home is 100 yrs old this year and is going to be around in another 100 years ... I hope.

Have the plaster tested for asbestos. If there is, seal and repair will become even more attractive.

100+ year old house will be full of lead paint and most likely asbestos everywhere. Absestos is in the insulation, pipes, mixed into the plaster, in any non-wood flooring like linoleum, etc.

Not a huge concern unless you start breaking things apart which causes the asbestos fiber dust to float in the air and cause health issue.

Learn to love it as-is or you'll be a poor man and probably way over $50k. I'd go option 1 or DIY to avoid an endless money pit.

By the way if you have plaster and lath with wire mesh it's gonna make your wifi and cell service suck. Plan for ethernet runs.

dbracer wrote: ↑ 100+ year old house will be full of lead paint and most likely asbestos everywhere. Absestos is in the insulation, pipes, mixed into the plaster, in any non-wood flooring like linoleum, etc.

Not a huge concern unless you start breaking things apart which causes the asbestos fiber dust to float in the air and cause health issue.

Learn to love it as-is or you'll be a poor man and probably way over $50k. I'd go option 1 or DIY to avoid an endless money pit.

By the way if you have plaster and lath with wire mesh it's gonna make your wifi and cell service suck. Plan for ethernet runs.

My house is 100+ years old.
I'm currently gutting my kitchen due to a burst pipe
Lots of layers on the walls, including lath and plaster.
There is no asbestos.

It just depends what previous owners did

There are so many variables to this it's impossible to give an appropriate answer. Wood construction, or masonry? Do those prices include all the trim work? Have you considered upgrading the plumbing while the walls are stripped? (Foolish not to IMHO).

Stripping the lath and plaster on the exterior walls and insulating will certainly save you money in heating and cooling costs. I went from five tanks of oil heating my 1930's clapboard house, with zero insulation in the walls, to a tank and a half.

for a 100 year old home, the lath and plaster is the least of your worries, you probably have tube and nob wiring, you probably have lead pipes for water and galvanized metal pipes for drain pipes, all of this is very old and prone to malfunctions and hazards, when you have the walls ripped open it takes almost no effort to replace the tube and nob wiring with proper romex, you might as well also replace the fuse box with a proper circuit breaker too, i mean the list never ends, you could go on and on and on

When one does their research on asbestos - as I did for some of my disturbances (vermiculite in the attic and much lathe & plaster walls & ceiling), I came to believe this era is well before that of asbestos usage in materials and the many years of denial before it was removed from most applications. Our era was using, among other things, horse hair - which was easy to see. I also went to the max with ventilating dust as it was created in the room. I was probably changing the room's volume every minute or two. Drawing some air from the interior of the house to be sure of no backdrafting to that area of the house.
If in doubt have some material tested.

Shaner wrote: ↑ That is not a straight forward answer.
What province are you? What are the heating bills like? What is the heating source? Will you be here long term in order for the renovations to pay for themselves?
What you can afford also comes into it.
What is the exterior siding like? If it needs to be replaced soon, perhaps insulating the exterior walls will be more cost efficient.

Like you said, if you start opening up walls, you could find lots of other issues. it's not a problem if you're not getting permits, but it sounds like you are, in which case you may need to address those issues. You'll likely also get into asbestos testing before any reputable contractor will tear the walls open.

Oshawa, Ontario. We didn't start paying any bills yet. Furnace is the heating source. Long term. Exterior is bricks.
TIA

Shaner wrote: ↑ My house is 100+ years old.
I'm currently gutting my kitchen due to a burst pipe
Lots of layers on the walls, including lath and plaster.
There is no asbestos.

It just depends what previous owners did

Can I ask my service provider (Virgin), to add ethernet runs or whom should I hire for the same ?

Blessed. wrote: ↑ Can I ask my service provider (Virgin), to add ethernet runs or whom should I hire for the same ?

Virgin won't do it, but they may have someone they can refer you to. Not sure.
Once the walls are opened up, running wires is incredibly easy. You could do that yourself or pay pretty much anyone to do it. It really doesn't take any skill to do it.

GoodFellaz wrote: ↑ for a 100 year old home, the lath and plaster is the least of your worries, you probably have tube and nob wiring, you probably have lead pipes for water and galvanized metal pipes for drain pipes, all of this is very old and prone to malfunctions and hazards, when you have the walls ripped open it takes almost no effort to replace the tube and nob wiring with proper romex, you might as well also replace the fuse box with a proper circuit breaker too, i mean the list never ends, you could go on and on and on

Yes, we had tube and nob, which we replaced completely and got ESA inspection. Luckily , already have the circuit breaker. Most of the plumbing is updated , except the drain pipe which is still old style and the main water line from outside has galvanized pipe as well. Looking to change those as well.

Blessed. wrote: ↑ Can I ask my service provider (Virgin), to add ethernet runs or whom should I hire for the same ?

Wait, what? Forget friggin' your internet connections. That's the last of your worries. Disregard the response that said that embedded metal mesh will cause problems. The amount used is miniscule.

MrFrugal1 wrote: ↑ Wait, what? Forget friggin' your internet connections. That's the last of your worries. Disregard the response that said that embedded metal mesh will cause problems. The amount used is miniscule.

Sorry, I didn't quite understand. Metal mesh on top of the plaster walls & ceilings will cause problems or it is better to do that ?

Do you know if you're structural brick (ie multi wythe) or is it just brick vaneer? Quick check: is the wall where your door is +10" thick? From the outside, every 6th row or so are the bricks turned sideways (ie the short side out)?

If yes to either of the above, you've got structural masonry and it won't be as simple as ripping the lathe and plaster and insulating.. you'll have a load of building science materials to read up on lol

google "interior insulation of structural masonry" and have fun! lol

https://buildingscience.com/documents/d ... d-climates

#2 is the right way to do it, but #1 will be your path of least resistance unless you're ready to spend +$50k. For example, if you go closed cell spray foam that alone will cost you around $15-20k. If you go mineral wood insulation you've got a lot of other work to do (liquid applied membrane, smart vapour retarder, etc.) and its very easy to do wrong unless you hire an experienced team and an envelope engineer.

Then, you've got demo costs, potential abatement, and a huge contingency for the inevitable issues you find when you open the walls.

Blessed. wrote: ↑ Sorry, I didn't quite understand. Metal mesh on top of the plaster walls & ceilings will cause problems or it is better to do that ?

Metal mesh is sometimes used at intersections of walls, walls and ceilings, outside corners to create archways or crown moldings, and if walls have been tiled, such as a bathroom. With the exception of tiled bathrooms, I've never seen it applied over entire walls because it defeats the point of the wood lath.

If you are having patching done, someone may use metal mesh in place of wood, but most likely they'll use drywall as it is substantially easier to install and faster to finish.
Either way, it's doubtful that there would be enough metal to interfere with wifi. That said, I'm always in favour of pulling ethernet and using switches whenever possible, especially if walls are open.

i would never buy a 100 year old home unless i have budgeted 100,000 to rip out stuff like electrical, plumbing, drywall, hasbestos ,and make it new and safe again

Blessed. wrote: ↑ Sorry, I didn't quite understand. Metal mesh on top of the plaster walls & ceilings will cause problems or it is better to do that ?

It's irrelevant anyway. If you're opening up the walls to run ethernet cables, you're not going to put mesh and lath and plastic back on. You're obviously going to use drywall.
Either way, your WIFI will work, but if you want to run ethernet cables, anyone even a tiny bit handy can do it