# Drywall instead of plaster?



## AtlanticWBConst. (May 12, 2006)

shofnerd said:


> 1. Do we tear out all of the decent but cracked plaster walls and drywall or just bang holes and patch?


It all depends on your budget. However, if your goal is to fix things right, then get rid of *ALL* the old cracked plaster...period.
If you just bang holes and patch....you will still have old cracking plaster on the walls. Even if you repaired the "visible" cracks on the old wall, new cracks will develop and come along later....



shofnerd said:


> 2. How long would it take to remove the old plaster walls?


You mean, the plaster and the lathing. That depends on the size of the house and whether you want to save certain moldings. It also depends on stairwells, ceiling heights, amount of help you will have.....in essence, it's a little hard to tell you that without walking your property and further discussions about the details....

However, I will say this: assuming that this is a decent sized 2 floor older home, and if you have a small army of help, you may be able to do the actual removal in about 4 to 5 days. The main issues are the *weight* of removed horse-hair plaster and working off of ladders and staging. Old Horse-hair plaster is extremely heavy per sf. (esp. lugging it out in barrels) 
Get a big dumpster on site. If you can, have it placed near the house, so you can through the material out the windows. Find out from your local inspectional services what their requirements are regarding this (debris dust, etc). Make sure that you do all your prep work prior to the time you get help in there, so that they can just "go-to-town".



shofnerd said:


> 3. Should we do just one floor at a time or the whole home (1400 sq. ft.)?


Who is going to do the drywall work? I know alot of people who "say" and actually "think" that they can do drywall, but the work they do should not even by called "drywall"...

If you hire it out, which I would HIGHLY recommend on a nice older home.....then you should do it all at once, since the costs for the work will be less. 

If you are committed to doing it yourself, I would suggest that you try doing one floor first, then seeing if you want to tackle another floor on your own (or hire it out).



shofnerd said:


> 4. How much could we be looking at for materials to drywall that big of a home?


Again, we can't tell you. We can't see your home, there are alot of factors in a home's design that can "eat-up" sheets of sheetrock.(example - you list floor SF, but not ceiling heights, stair wells, closets, etc....
You could need 80 12'-sheets, you could need 130 + 12'-sheets.....


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## send_it_all (Apr 30, 2007)

As far as the drywall...you will need approximately 50 sheets to do the ceiling. To figure the walls....measure the total LINEAR footage of wall space that needs to be covered. Multiply that number by the ceiling height in feet...That is the square footage of wall area. Assuming your walls are standard 8' height, you would divide the total square footage by 32 (the number of square feet in a standard 4x8 sheet of drywall) to figure the number of sheets you would need.
Example:
Ceiling = 1400 square feet divided by 32 = 43.75 sheets. (I rounded up to 50 for waste it may be even a few more)
Walls 600 linear feet of wall X 8' ceilings = 4800 divided by 32 = 150 sheets. My estimating program says add 7% for waste....161 sheets for walls.

total 211 sheets. Home Depot in my area sells 1/2" 4 X 8 drywall for $9.90 + tax That comes to $2251 in my neighborhood including 7.75% sales tax. Hope this helped.


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## send_it_all (Apr 30, 2007)

Also keep in mind that plaster is usually quite a bit thicker than drywall. So after you drywall, all your door jambs in the house will protrude beyond the drywall, so you will need to address that. All new pre-hung doors would be a good way. Before you just go buy pre-hung doors, you will want to verify the width of your wall studs. Older homes sometimes have an actuall 2" X 4" wall stud, whereas today's 2x4 studs are actually 1-1/2" X 3-1/2". The jambs for new pre-hung doors are made for modern studs and will not fit the old ones.....WELCOME TO REMODELING. Isn't it fun?


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## AtlanticWBConst. (May 12, 2006)

send_it_all said:


> Also keep in mind that plaster is usually quite a bit thicker than drywall. So after you drywall, all your door jambs in the house will protrude beyond the drywall, so you will need to address that. All new pre-hung doors would be a good way. Before you just go buy pre-hung doors, you will want to verify the width of your wall studs. Older homes sometimes have an actuall 2" X 4" wall stud, whereas today's 2x4 studs are actually 1-1/2" X 3-1/2". The jambs for new pre-hung doors are made for modern studs and will not fit the old ones.....WELCOME TO REMODELING. Isn't it fun?


Along with the point that Send_it_all makes.....it is common that you may have to add lathing strips vertically onto the existing home's studs to help build out the wall thickness to match window and door jambs....


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## AtlanticWBConst. (May 12, 2006)

send_it_all said:


> As far as the drywall...you will need approximately 50 sheets to do the ceiling. To figure the walls....measure the total LINEAR footage of wall space that needs to be covered. Multiply that number by the ceiling height in feet...That is the square footage of wall area. Assuming your walls are standard 8' height, you would divide the total square footage by 32 (the number of square feet in a standard 4x8 sheet of drywall) to figure the number of sheets you would need.
> Example:
> Ceiling = 1400 square feet divided by 32 = 43.75 sheets. (I rounded up to 50 for waste it may be even a few more)
> Walls 600 linear feet of wall X 8' ceilings = 4800 divided by 32 = 150 sheets. My estimating program says add 7% for waste....161 sheets for walls.
> ...


Additional costs:
Also figure 1 bucket of ready mix compound per 10 sheets. Then add a few more buckets for "overage". Add corner bead, and (1 to 2) 25lb cases of 1-1/4" screws. Add for paper tape for the wallboard seams. Sand paper, sand poles, any other tools that you plan on purchasing for this job. Delivery charges for all the materials as well. If you want to "save" the floors (assumed hardwood), put down tarpaper using duct tape on the seams and allow for those costs too.
(Tip: The more corner bead there is, the more compound gets "eatin up")


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