RI Renovation Help & Suggestions

[Andrew Casal]

Hello everyone!

I have a few questions regarding some renovations that I am considering for my rental in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. 

Currently my units have a lot of old plaster and are not insulated. I am hearing mixed things regarding whether to repair the plaster and not worry about the plaster or to remove the plaster, insultate, and put up drywall.

Additionally due to the state pushing the elimination of gas and oil, I was looking to at some point convert from gas baseboards to electric mini-splits. I'm hearing different things from different people regarding this.

My original thought was to insulate than add the mini-splits, but as mentioned I'm getting too many different opinions. I don't pay the heat or the electric in my units so this is more for tenant retention/updating units.

Any help is appreciated. 

[Anthony Thompson]

@Andrew Casal the usual rule with plaster is, if you only have to disturb a small area (e.g., hanging something) then just leave the plaster, do your thing, patch it and move on.

If you have to disturb larger sections you run the definite risk of breaking the "keys" that hold the plaster tight to the lath, so you might find that sections start to fall down which can create a cascading/domino like effect.

There are probably ways to carefully cut out sections that can reduce the chance of that happening, but like I said, the general rule is that if you're disturbing large sections you might just have to replace the whole area with drywall to be done with it.

I don't have specific tips on the gas and oil changes re: RI's commitment to reduce/eliminate them. My understanding is that it will play out over the next few decades. There's probably a benefit to being an early adopter in that you take care of it before everyone else "has to" do it, but if you're too early then the infrastructure/products/know-how isn't there as much so you pay more than if you wait until demand is more widespread.

Most folks I know, including myself, are taking a "wait and see" approach at the moment, but obviously folks that owner occupy might act earlier especially since it could benefit them personally.

Now is a good time to recommend RISE Engineering, which does free energy audits of residential properties and then reduced-cost work if you do decide to implement some/all of their suggested improvements.

My understanding is that it's free for the audit and reduced-cost for the work, because they get funded partly from charges everyone already pays on their electric/energy bills - i.e., it's subsidized by a tax we're already paying. The downside is that because they do free audits and reduced-cost work, they are often backed up on appointments 6-9 months out, especially when heading into the cold season as we are now.