It’s no fun to replace walls and a lime plaster wall will need replacing less often than drywall, due to damage and age.Įven if the plaster is sagging or cracked, it can be repaired to last for decades more in the ways I outline in the video below. When you combine all these things together, you get a longer lasting and overall better product in plaster that has and will continue to stand the test of time. If that alone doesn’t convince you to keep your plaster, I’m not sure what will. To me, that makes lime one of the greenest building materials ever invented. It needs the carbon dioxide to help it turn back into limestone and so it continuously pulls carbon dioxide from the atmosphere little by little, as long as it is standing. That process of carbonation we talked about earlier. Lime, the primary ingredient in historic plasters prior to the 1930s, releases water and draws in carbon dioxide as it cures. I’m sure increased pollution and population growth have played a role too, but that doesn’t mean lime didn’t help. I don’t know if it’s coincidence that as we have used less lime plaster and mortar in construction, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has continued to rise. Plaster Removes Carbon Dioxide From the Air No, it won’t heal big structural cracks, but small hairline cracks can heal themselves over time and I have seen it happen on more than one occasion. Lime goes through a curing process called carbonation which causes it to continuously be building and rebuilding bonds between its particles. That’s an increase in sound blocking of 52%. Compare that to a nearly 1″ thick lath and plaster wall which has an STC rating of approximately 52 according to US Gypsum. It’s helpful in comparing different ways of building and how they affect the amount of sound that transfers through a wall or ceiling.ġ/2″ drywall on 2×4 wood studs has an STC rating of 34 according to National Gypsum. STC (Sound Transmission Class) is a rating for various wall assemblies used by the building industry. Nobody likes a noisy house, and plaster is extremely helpful when it comes to reducing noise through walls. Plaster is a Better Sound Blocker Than Drywall 45, there isn’t much to gain here, but every little bit helps, especially when the plaster is already there. Yes, your plaster walls likely have little to no insulation behind them, but the wall covering itself has an R-value twice that of drywall.īeing that 1/2″ drywall has an R-value of. We’ve just finished talking about plaster’s thickness so it naturally follows that the thicker the wall, the better the insulation it provides. Plaster is a Better Insulator Than Drywall That means a lime plaster wall would be nearly twice as thick as drywall and made of limestone! Which do you think is better at resisting dents and dings? 2. Traditional plaster walls are about 7/8″ thick compared to standard drywall which is 3/8″ gypsum plus a piece of paper on either side for a grand total of 1/2″. Traditional lime plaster has been slowly transforming itself back into limestone since the day it was applied. If you put plaster and drywall head to head, there is no competition which is a harder wall covering. There are a lot of reasons to keep original plaster and below are the six biggest reasons in my mind why saving it is a worthwhile goal. Did you know that lime plaster can even heal its own small cracks over time? We’ll talk more about that below, but for now, don’t feel like that old plaster’s done just because it’s old. You may notice cracks in you old walls and gouges from years of hanging pictures and knick-knacks, but that doesn’t mean it’s toast. That being said, I think I can convince you to keep your plaster. After all, how much do you really notice a wall or ceiling unless something is wrong with it. Plaster is one of my favorite features in an old house and one that is easily overlooked.
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