Lath and Plaster repair costs

[Wesley Edwards]

Hi everyone,

I am in the middle of renovating a 1600 square foot rowhome so that I can start renting it out. Having been built in 1890, the walls are all lath and plaster. The house has been vacant for a few years and in that time has suffered some water damage from a leaky roof (we have a brand new roof on it now). The end result is that the vast majority of the walls/ceilings are falling apart and some even have mold underneath. 

Recently, I got a quote from a contractor who is willing to take care of all of the walls and ceilings for approximately $7000. This will include removing the mold, fixing the lath and plaster, and repainting all of the surfaces. He would be fixing up the entire home minus the basement. To those who have experience with older homes like this, does that sound like a fair price? I am new to renovations and do not know what price would make sense for a job of this size. 

[Jim K.]

@Wesley Edwards

I'm going to second what @Sam Leonsaid here. In my area on the other side of the state, you're not going to find competent plaster guys to do work on a non-historical renovation budget. Demoing all the plaster and redoing it in sheetrock, depending on the age of the building and the methods of construction used, tends to have its own special problems, The older the building and the methods used to plaster it, the more difficult it is to do a good job. The usual way that problems like the ones you're describing are fixed is to preserve the plaster where you can and repair the problem areas with 3/8 in. or 1/2 in. sheetrock, plaster washers, wall repair fabric, and joint compound. This is significantly more difficult and expensive to do on ceilings than it is on walls, perversely, plaster ceilings tend to fail more often than plaster walls.

As Sam also pointed out, very often in this business you will meet shady types who will assure you that plaster repair can be accomplished by filling holes in plaster and skim coating large cracked areas with joint compound or straight gypsum plaster, typically sold as "plaster of Paris." That doesn't work over the long haul.