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If the paint is chipping, the plaster is 'dusting' How much and how often, I wouldn't know. It took me a year to realize that chipping plaster would be a breathing issue.
The paint is not really chipping. There are only line cracks on the walls and ceilings. I haven't heard of plaster dust as an ongoing issue, probably just after there is work in the house. But I will research.
We are going though a kitchen and bathroom remodel of our 1st house. It's a 1940 marina style San Francisco house. Some of the rooms have a lot of hairline cracks on the walls and ceiling. I hear that's normal and happens when house sets and plaster cracks.
As I am walking through the rest of the house with architect to see what needs to be done in rooms, he says we can fix the cracks but they could come back. Could be 1 week or years, but it's likely to come back.
So he suggests as an option replacing all plaster walls with sheet rock. He says it will be brand new, no risk of cracks, we could add insulation and do a full rewiring since it would be exposed. Adding the sheetrock will be $8k+ for the entire house and we are already over budget.
I wonder, in SF there are a lot of older homes, I can't imagine that everyone is replacing their plaster with sheetrock, but I don't know. I also hear that sheet rock doesn't have the same "feel" as plaster. We have a cute house with molding on all the ceilings with cool "art-decoish" details, and not sure how that will look with sheet rock walls under it.
Should we leave the cracks as "charm" of older house, try to fix with the risk of coming back, or put sheetrock?
BTW: We plan to do foundation work in 1 year. So my concern about fixing the cracks now is, wouldn't structural work on the house bring cracks back and many more new ones?
I really appreciate your opinion.
Thanks
A lot depends on if you are investing in the property or only going to use it to live in now and forever. Sheet rock cracks too BTW so maybe you need a new architect. If they told you sheet rock doesn't crack I'd question everything else they told you as well.
Its an older home and people expect character with age. The sheet rock will destroy the original character of the house. Many people pay a premium for older homes because they have something new homes don't. If you want a McHouse, sheet rock away.
If you are over 40 or more I bet your face has some cracks in it. If not, they are on the way. You can paste over them, fill them and all that but only the appearance has changed and everyone knows what you did.
A lot depends on if you are investing in the property or only going to use it to live in now and forever. Sheet rock cracks too BTW so maybe you need a new architect. If they told you sheet rock doesn't crack I'd question everything else they told you as well.
Its an older home and people expect character with age. The sheet rock will destroy the original character of the house. Many people pay a premium for older homes because they have something new homes don't. If you want a McHouse, sheet rock away.
If you are over 40 or more I bet your face has some cracks in it. If not, they are on the way. You can paste over them, fill them and all that but only the appearance has changed and everyone knows what you did.
Hi Mack, thanks for the feedback. Not sure if I mentioned it was the architect that said that, it wasn't. Was the GC.
This is a home for me, my wife and the soon to be newborn. None of us are from the bay area and we don't have our heart in staying here forever. We just don't know at this point. So with every work I am doing on the home, I am thinking what will give us a nice confortable home for the next few years and that will add value for when we sell.
After getting all the opinions here, I am not inclined to replace the plaster with sheet rock. Just want to make sure the amount of cracks I have are normal for a 1940 house in area with seismic activity, or if there could be something else going on.
Is it worth fixing the cracks by the painter when he paints? It seems that in some of those walls there was some bad fixing from some previous painter, do you agree? That house was rented out before by previous owner, so I think she didn't want to pay much to painter to fix any cracks.
Hi Mack, thanks for the feedback. Not sure if I mentioned it was the architect that said that, it wasn't. Was the GC.
This is a home for me, my wife and the soon to be newborn. None of us are from the bay area and we don't have our heart in staying here forever. We just don't know at this point. So with every work I am doing on the home, I am thinking what will give us a nice confortable home for the next few years and that will add value for when we sell.
After getting all the opinions here, I am not inclined to replace the plaster with sheet rock. Just want to make sure the amount of cracks I have are normal for a 1940 house in area with seismic activity, or if there could be something else going on.
Is it worth fixing the cracks by the painter when he paints? It seems that in some of those walls there was some bad fixing from some previous painter, do you agree? That house was rented out before by previous owner, so I think she didn't want to pay much to painter to fix any cracks.
San Francisco houses have cracks. First thing, do all the doors and windows open ok? Even if they stick a little that doesn't mean bad things but check that first. If all checks out then it is probably just age. If the cracks are large (width of the crack) I'd have the structure checked. A consultation in SF just for a quick look see probably won't cost you anything, just don't use a contractor for this, get an engineer. While not 100% definitive it can give you some direction. A one hour consult will give you all the info you need to decide if something else is going on. Best couple of hundred you'll ever spend.
Those Marina style houses are wonderful. If you're going to sell in a while (even say 4 years from now) and structurally it is ok, keep the plaster and look for the buyer who likes that, they'll pay.
If all is ok, just filling and painting gives you what you want. SF shakes once in a while so expect cracks to reappear unless the foundation has been redone, the nature of living where you do. Those cracks don't look bad but again, this is just from pics. Looks like age related and don't forget, SF has gone through some real shakers since it was built.
Remember this: cracks in old plaster in SF are expected. Once you put sheet rock up, cracks will be a red flag.
We patched similar hairline cracks in our plaster walls in Southern California. The cracks did not come back. At least not in the 9 years we stayed there, and t the best of my knowledge they have not come back in the next 7 years either. (I have been in the house a few times and saw no sign of cracks. There have been several significant earthquakes during that time. One quake did make a new crack but not where the repairs were. However you should have seen some of the cracks in friend's dry wall - far more severe.
Hairline cracks do not need patching, They just need a very light skim coat and prime/pain or wallpaper. You can also go over it with 1/8" drywall, but you will need to remove and re-set your moldings.
Removing plaster is usually opening a can of worms. You need to remove and replace all of the moldings. Normally the plaster is much thicker than drywall. The door and window casings are set up for the thickness of plaster. as a result you either need to use ticker commercial drywall, insert spacers behind the drywall, replace your door frames and window frames, or live with them sticking out of the wall and looking awful. Further, if you remove the plaster, you may have to remove the lath as well before you can drywall. If the plaster used diamond lath, it can be very difficult to remove either the plaster or the lath and you will likely end up having to repair damage to the framing. Depending on how your house was built if you have wood floors, they may not reach to the walls if you instal drywall. You may need to add some molding thickness, or cover the flooring. You may also need to replace all of the light switch and outlet boxes.
If you re-wire, the local inspectors may require all kinds of upgrades. In fact any major work that requires permits may end up with requirements for hard wired smoke detectors, fire-blocking in the walls, complete re-wiring with an outlet every 6 feet. . . I know one family who ended up tearing their house down after pulling an electrical permit because the requirements to meet modern codes was so expensive it woudl cost more than the house was worth. that extreme is very rare (only heard of it happening once) however it is not unusual that if your inspector and/or local agency of jurisdiction has no understanding of older houses and old building methods, they can make you substantially rebuild your house the first time you try to pull a permit. (In other places, it will be no big deal, just get a permit for what you are going to do and do that thing correctly and you are done.)
Last edited by Coldjensens; 04-30-2013 at 11:59 AM..
Thanks all. This is the feedback I got from the painter. His approach to fixing the cracks and painting the walls.
Does it sound ok?
Quote:
"Complete preparation and painting of above property as follows:
Filling all cracks, sanding, and applying a tin coat of topping mud on entire wall surfaces,
Sanding and full priming with Vinyl wall sealer (PVA) because all walls will be covered
with new mud, and it is considered as new surface.
This is same as previously submitted quotation. We were going to prep and prim as it was
all new surfaces. With one exception that there will be an extra work to patch and fill all
cracks and apply new tin layer. Any other approach to prep and repair the cracks will end
up making the walls appear with lots of lines on it. This is called spider web effect""
There are lots of ways to fix tiny cracks. i am not familiar with that method. I woudl ask them for references and to talk to the people. I would also ask for a reference where their work failed and they went back and fixed it. If they say their work never failed, they are probably inexperienced or lying. If their work failed and they promptly corrected it and ended up with a happy customer, that is generally a good company.
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