I just sat and watched a whole video on the history of Sheetrock. I’m officially an old man now. 😅

My cousin lives in a 1899 Victorian. He is fortunate enough to possess all the original blueprints and bids, and contracts which is super cool. The contracts for the plaster specify how much goat hair is to be used in the plaster. Imagine that!

Very interesting video. My Dad was a plasterer. His career followed your timeline. When retired, his work was almost all remodels in Beverly Hills to match the exiting work in those beautiful old mansions there. He had distain for dry wall commenting that it was applied by "shack artists" , 😊 But even the 14 year old version of me could see that his was a dying art. In fact, one of his last projects was to come out of retirement to work on the J. Paul Getty Museum in Pacific Palisades'. Much of the fancy plaster work, (Crown Molding, Cornices and Medallions, etc.) were created by my dad. Are there people around now who can do this type of work? Not many, I'll bet.

My junior high had real plaster walls, and even as a kid I noticed the difference. If you knocked or tapped on the walls they were dead solid, without the hollow, cheap drum effect of newer buildings. The ceiling, molding, walls and corners seemed sculpted and unified in a way that drywall construction couldn't match.

I owned a 1920s house in CT. I renovated the living room and found old sheetrock with "patent pending" stamped on the inside. Also just to mention for fun, the previous owner renovated the upstairs bedroom and they must have overturned a can of paint. I found a big glob of paint sitting on the upside of the first floor ceiling. It never fully dried.

In 1962, when I was 15, I began working summers with my dad, who was a lather. This was in the San Jose area of California, and apartment buildings were being built all over. Carport ceilings were covered with "Rocklath," a sheetrock-type material full of holes, over which plaster was applied.

A UK perspective. Our current house has a wonderful mixture of “plaster”. The front part dates from 1760: it is traditional lathe and plaster. The lathes were made from chestnut and hand-riven not sawn. There is a great tradition of coppicing chestnut here (also in Italy and maybe other countries). Chestnut trees are initially allowed to grow maybe 20’ and then the main trunk is sawn off. The tree regrows but with multiple stems (or branches?) around the place where the main trunk was. These multiple new stems are allowed to grow for 3 or 4 years and they get up to 20 feet or so; then those stems are harvested; the stump left and more, new stems, grow. It is a rotational crop. A woodsman would have perhaps 20 copse which he looked after and, every year, he just went from one to the next as the chestnut had grown. Some of these copse are well over 100 years old and you can see the evidence of how the chestnut resiliently grows, is cut down, grow a again, cut down etc. It’s not as widely practiced as it used to be because we don’t use as many chestnut products as we used to - but it is still quite common. We have a stock fence which has chestnut stakes driven into the ground. One big use was/is that the largest and straight-est of the crop became hop poles for the huge number of hop gardens that we had in Kent. Smaller branches became sheep hurdles, garden fence hurdles, baskets, trugs- all manner of things that were used in rural UK. So , branches of chestnut, perhaps 2” in diameter, were riven with a special axe in halves or quarters when green and allowed to dry. They were then sold to the local builders. The builder had already got the building up using large oak beams, again usually hand cut with axe and adze and he then put in more vertical, smaller oak columns to provide the place onto which he could nail the wooden lathes. He could then mix up his own plaster mixture which was usually a blend of slaked lime, chalk and horse hair. Obviously the thickness of the plaster had to be quite high so that you could push the first coats through the lathes and get it keyed onto the lathes. Later coats were thinner until he got to the finish he wanted. Then, in a later part of the house, we have crude fibre board used instead of the lathes and this was again plastered over. Later still, we have what we know as plaster board which is again skimmed over with a layer perhaps 3/16”. In the barn conversion, we have a mixture. We have different grades of plasterboard for different appplicat

Our house built in 1941 had a brown coat and plaster veneer over a sheetrock like product made by US Gypsum, total thickness neatly one inch. The finish coat was like glass, you could not see a trowel mark on it. Made for a very nice, soundproof house with good thermal mass. Way better than modern drywall and a huge improvement over lathe construction.

Our home (built in 1963) was finished inside using "fireproof lath". I discovered this right after we bought it in 1997 and was remodeling / updating the bathrooms. The product was 3/8" thick and came in 16" x 48" pieces applied horizontally with the joints staggered just as is now done with drywall. The applied plaster varied in thickness from about 3/8" to as much as 3/4". There was also a wire mesh embedded in all of the corners. I would say it was quite durable as there were virtually no cracks as is far too often now the case with drywall.

Fascinating! 80-90% of any middle class or even lower middle class homes are either fired clay brick or concrete brick in my country, Uganda. With cement and sand plaster as the preferred veneer. Ceramic tiles are usually the floor. Richer folks may use marble, wood tiles, or terrazzo. The only wood is usually in trusses for the roofing and in the kitchen and wardrobes. Makes for excellent sound proofing.

One drawback of drywall is that it will grow mold on it's paper layers easily with water damage.

You're telling me drywall was originally invented to be used for as a plaster and lathe replacement? No way, I don't buy it, you're blowing my mind over here

Just imagine going in a room and nailing a 1/4x1 strip of wood on every stud and ceiling rafter. Every 1/4" apart. Then you use gallons of plaster on three coats each wall and ceiling. It must be smooth and flat. Now you got to clean all your tools and the spills. Now either brown paper or news paper is applied. You can then paint, wallpaper or wood finish. Very time consuming and expensive. Years of experience are necessary and very special tools.

I moved to a 1860s farmhouse in Devon, UK, as a 6 year old kid in the mid 80s. All the rooms had lathe and plaster walls, including hair for binding. We know it was installed on 1899... because there was a newspaper from that year, still readable, in the gap behind one of them...👍

My 1941 house in New England has sheet rock on interior walls, covered with a uniform ½ inch of plaster layers (including a thin brown coat and a white coat 2:03). You’re 100% correct that they saw sheet rock as a replacement _for the lath only_ (and they kept the lathers on staff to install it), and the plaster guys were the the other half of the team, so they stayed employed as well-even though today we see sheet rock as a finished product with a single installer.

When drywall taping became popular, plasterers rejected it and tapers as inferior tradesmen. This was a big mistake, because the tapers were swallowed up by the painters union, while the plastering trade became more and more obsolete.

I live in a large brick house from 1897, and luckily, almost all the plaster walls are intact. In very few places, we have had to replace it with sheetrock, but most of the repairs have been done with the old three layer technique. Compared to sheetrock, I find that the plaster simply looks better, and it is much quieter as well. In modern homes, one can often hear everything going on next door, where as with plaster walls, very little sound come through.

Interesting fact, in today's modern world, wifi signals transmit better through drywall than plaster.

Brent, I enjoyed the video however you missed one important point. Drywall lath was originally used to replace the labor intensive wood lath application and in many cases the scratch coat. It did not originally replace the brown, or leveling coat. This all-important coat is the one that allows the plasterer to build the wall out to the grounds as well as straighten and square up the wall and room through the dot and screed process to prepare for a full finish coat. I live in a 1962 ranch style builders home which has walls plastered in this way. It is very common in this area (Western Michigan) and in houses from late '40's into the '70's. Of course now virtually all houses and commercial buildings use drywall that is taped, finished and painted and the finished product is rarely as straight, square and plumb as traditional plaster would be. There are still a fair number of us traditional plasterers around (I have just over 30 years experience) who know the difference.

I have worked in a few old houses, and I admire the skill of those old plasterers.

Thank you for the education, I do love my plaster walls for many reasons, one not mentioned is the ability to hang a painting on the wall anywhere I would like, one does not have to worry about finding a stud. Thank you Brent!

My childhood home (built 1958) had sheetrock in the closets, several layers thick. But the rooms were plastered. Instead of lath, there was perforated steel. The first layer looked like spray-on concrete. It was solid stuff! Great for soundproofing.

I can't believe I found this amazing resource just trying to find out why drywall is used at all.

Thanks for sharing. Was working on my house built in 1940's and noticed a plaster final coat, on a brown /scratch coat, on what looked to be 2 ft wide pieces of drywall hung horizontally.... have wondered why about the wall build up .. now it makes sense. Thank you again for sharing!!

1935 house. Early sheetrock that is 1/2 thick. 16" wide ran horizontal. Then 1/2 cement type base and 1/4 finish coat. Crazy stuff tough as nails. I hope to replicate it upstairs instead of just fragile sheetrock. Great video Brent. Thanks!

In Canada black asphalt impregnated exterior fibreboard was called Tentest The interior kind of fibreboard was called Homasote Very common in low cost or vacation homes in Ontario Gyproc plaster board was used up to the mid 70s Plastering trade died out replaced by drywallers Some high end homes have level 5 drywall ( skim coat) but it’s harder to find people with the trowel skills

My house was built in 1936 and has what I now think was an attempt by the plaster industry to stay relevant: factory made plaster panels that are 3' x 5' that were nailed up which then only needed two skim coats to finish. No lath! (which was a blessing when it came to dense packing the walls with insulation).

I could go either way on sheet rock but it’s definitely not a loss of craftsmanship like we see with carpentry today (in general) Thanks for keeping it going!

Interesting presentation, as always. I’m going to use plaster in my new build, which is also an interesting topic( modern plastering techniques). Some people don’t even know that plaster is still done, it is considered a high end material because of its hardness, but finding people that know how to properly apply it isn’t always easy. Also I’d love to hear your opinion on plaster vs. wood moulding. Perhaps it is worth a video!

Don’t forget about split lath and plaster that was used prior to cut lath strips. I owned a house in Maine that was built in 1813 that used this method. When I was replacing walls with Sheetrock, I’d skim off the plaster and leave up the split lath. Very easy to screw into and hardly a miss with the screws!

Hi Brent, thanks for this video. For what it's worth...I've been a sheetrock and insulation contractor since the 1990's. Around 2008 I became a home performance and weatherization contractor with BPI envelope and building analyst certifications. I've worked on hundreds of homes over the years and have seen a lot of different things. I live in a 1964 ranch and have been remodeling it over the years. What I've found is it has a R-9 fiberglass batt in the exterior walls with a layer of the fiber board you mentioned with T1-11 over that. To my surprise this is one of the most energy efficient homes I've seen. I don't know the secret to that stuff but from what I've seen, it has some unique qualities. Sound deadening and albeit small, it does help with the overall R-value (or U-value to be technical).

as a former drywaller of 10 years (office boy now) this is very exciting to learn,

Great video. Thanks! We have an interesting old house in Concord NH. They said it was built 1930s, but the front part of the house has definite indications of an older 1870 date, showing up on older maps. We have beaverboard in most of the house, plaster and drywall in newer remodeled parts. Your show helps me make decisions in fixing it, respecting traditions.

This is cool video. Our house was built in the 1920's and has still has plaster and lath on the main floor. However, while rebuilding our stairs I encoutered wire lath. Ugh! What a pain to remove. My parents' house was a ranch style house built in the 1950's. It plaster over drywall. Even the garage was finished with plater over drywall, although it was a rougher plaster.

My current job has the sheetrock covered by plaster in most places. Some has the hair in the plaster. It also has some of the house just steel mesh and small steel c channel. I did not know why anyone would put plaster over sheetrock, but this video gave me those answers. Thanks Brent!

Very nice, I think I can help clarify a little bit. wood lath was replaced by gypsum lath right after WWII. That is what " handy Andy" is putting up in the video.we called it Button board when they put holes in it. It was a two coat process, 3/8 inch gypsum, plaster, we called hardwall and a finish (putty)coat. That was popular for the 50's and into the 60's. . The outside ( stucco) used three coat plaster and wire lath over open studs. By 1970, drywall was replacing interior lath and plaster in major chucks and lath and plaster died out. ( Shame) . Plasterers did like losing interior , but stucco ( outside) was so popular it was ok. we had lots of work.

You made a great point. Finding a new material or method for completing a task that saves time doesn't have to compromise quality. I'd call that an improvement that creates value and moves society forward. Unfortunately, many of the time-saving tactics that people use are just cutting corners, which does compromise quality. This is value-destructive and moves us backward. For example, I inspected a house yesterday with an improperly installed stone veneer that was leaking water into the wall cavity. My assumption is that the homeowner hired unqualified people to work on their house to save money. Now, the stone veneer has to be removed, the moisture damaged wall needs to be repaired, and the veneer system needs to be installed again properly so that it does not leak. I also assume that a well-qualified contractor, who would have done the job right the first time for a higher price, lost the job. No money was saved in the long-term and all parties are worse-off as a result. The only exception might be the unqualified contractor if they are not held accountable for their work. This is what I'm observing daily, and I experience it too in my business.

Very interesting! Thanks for taking the time to post this. I am in Charleston SC and have noticed this, I have seen and worked on many of the original houses with the old wood lath and horse hair in the plaster mix, to perforated drywall with a skim coat and as some one mentioned the half inch or so holes in the drywall boards, I have seen the wire mesh used on curved areas especially. Very interesting seeing the different products used over the years. Also, plaster crown molding is quite fascinating to me.

One of my properties from the 1880’s has horse hair in the plaster to help bind it and prevent cracks.

Brent, I agree with you. Sheetrock was a great innovation. The same craft could still be applied to stucco, and blue board plastering, and it still takes some craft to hit level 4 and 5 drywall. It is also worth asking if a craft "needs" to be kept (not a lot of wagonwheel makers). If the finish quality is just as good, but the home costs less, finishes faster, and is accessible to more people, then maybe it is an unnecessary or less-necessary craft. It is also a lot easier to patch and make changes on the future. Not sure on this, but the fire resistance may be better as well. Thanks for putting this together. 👍

For most cases sheet rock is a lateral move in craftsmanship for lower labor and easier remodeling. But you can only get beautiful coved ceilings and curved walls with plaster.

I had a house from the 1950s in Georgia around 1000 sq ft. True dimension 2 x 4 studs, 3/8 inch drywall, insoboard as exterior sheathing underneath the aluminum siding. House is still standing strong today, and easy to keep cool with a 4X 4 attic fan in the ceiling. Complete air replacement in the house within 5 minutes.

I lived in a house that had walls using those drywall boards like that shown at 5:43; layer of gypsum board, layer of mortar mix & skim coat of plaster. HARD AS A ROCK. You couldn't drive a nail to hang a picture, you had to take a masonry bit & a hammer drill to make the hole to insert an anchor. The sheet rock/plaster combination was 3/4" thick, so you couldn't patch a repair with 1/2" sheet-rock, I had to find a source for 3/8" sheet-rock and double layer it.

So interesting! My house was built in 1918 so the main floor has plaster on the original walls but part of the attic was finished off at some point. Watching this, this is what they used for the walls, but I always thought it was weird that they put plaster over what looks like particle board! And if it gets wet (there was a leak around the chimney from poorly done flashing) it swells and is ruined just like a paper product!

I own a 1928 house in New Zealand. Lounge had Beaver Board and batten ceiling; bedroom had Beaver Board walls and ceiling. No building wrap, no insulation, just rough sawn bevelback weatherboards and Beaver Board. Freezing cold and full of windblown sand.

Thankfully my 1944 slag block house had drywall from the start. I didn't even know 3/8" drywall existed until I started renovating this house!

Interesting stuff. Our house was built in late 1925 and the interior walls are lath and plaster at least where not remodeled. One of the upstairs closets has some visible Inso-Board still showing. The exterior was clapboard siding but at some point "Insul-Brick" siding had been applied, probably in the 1950s. Today it has vinyl siding.

Here in the UK, "plaster board" is routinely used as a substrate onto which wet plaster is applied, absolutely in lieu of the older lath and plaster method. This has many benefits over just smooshing a bit of wet plaster over the joints between plaster boards. I've worked in thousands of buildings where I've found laths behind plaster which has been mixed with hair for strength, and it's still there after 200 yrs

As an electrician who has had to cut a hole in a plaster wall and fish some Romex through I can tell you that drywall has been a huge blessing for anyone wanting to add an outlet or a switch. Cutting the hole to add a switch took considerably longer than it would have with sheetrock and it was difficult to make the cuts even and neat, and with the rough texture on the backside it took more than half an hour to fish the Romex through where it would typically have taken only a couple minutes with drywall.

The wood lathe in my family's New England saltbox farmhouse is split along the random grain lines, rather than cut. The interior walls in my circa 1928 city apartment are 3-coat plaster over 1/2" Celotex. It's labeled Celotex Lathe, and says which side is to receive plaster. Very sound proof and very strong.

This video explains why my 1947 house has 18" wide drywall under our plaster finish coats. Cost and time savings. Thanks for the enlightenment.

My 1870s solid masonry farmhouse had plaster, no drywall. My addition is wood and CEMENT BOARD, in place of drywall. Drywall has paper, bugs love to eat paper and mold will grow if moisture is high. Cement board does NOT do this., it also will not burn, will not rot, and does not crumble when wet. As you always say- build with the RIGHT materials if you want it to last.

It’s my understanding that Sheetrock had some controversy during its implementation. Thousands of plasterers might not have accepted it so it was marketed and sized as a replacement to the laborious lath installation portion. At that time the surface finish was not as good. Eventually plasterers transitioned to using it as the final surface and also sheet size and paper quality improved. One of the most ingenious product implementation tactics ever to hit the building industry.

I've come across a lot of Celotex on older houses on Long Island. Also, many Levittown houses on LI used an exterior sheetrock, which was covered with black paper and water-resistant. After some 75 years, it is still doing its job underneath the asbestos shingles.

Love drywall, especially when interior walls are insulated. Germans can have cinderblocks. I love renovating my 60 year old home, tearing down walls, building new ones. Additions, renovations, etc.

Brent, any idea of the history for why the finish plastering trade (on blue board) stayed strong in the Boston area, and other places switched to the drywall approach? The tradesmen were simply concentrated there in New England?

Sheetrock definitely saves time and money. I may be wrong, but I also believe it requires less craftsmanship to install so there's another money saver. I live in a 1952 ranch home with wood lath and plaster, aside from a few cracks due to settling it still looks great. My wife and I raised three boys and despite their best efforts they could never even dent the walls, I don't think sheetrock would've held up as well. Another plus for plaster is that I can hang almost anything anywhere on any wall without a stud-finder or anchor screws.

My house was built in the mid fifties and has paster over gypsum interior walls. It's a pain doing renovations because the thickness of the plaster is inconsistent so in some cases it's easier to just sheet rock an entire wall than cut out a section and build it up. Not to mention they papered over the final plaster coat which is now peeling, so I'm also skim coating, sanding and heavy priming to get a smooth base for painting.

I know in boston they use US gypsum blue board and float a layer of plaster over the whole thing. If you look up NS builders they have some videos on it.

Plaster is great until you have to remove it for renovation work. Most that I have worked on is on wire lathe, walls, ceilings, and tile bathrooms.

I have 2 early 1950's town houses in Maryland. Both, they put up 1/4" drywall and then plastered 2 layers over it. It came in 2 foot wide by 8 foot sheets. Just basically replaced the wood with the sheetrock board.

We removed a wall in our house, one side was lathe and plaster with horse hair, the other side was lathe, wire and plaster. Removing the wire was hell, but it did hold on amazing. It was odd because qe found some newspaper in the walls from the 50s, which tells me the lathe was probably really old and the wire was used in a remodel or renovation of the plaster. The plaster on the ground floor seems to be newer than the plaster work on our second floor. It makes sense to me that originally drywall was used as a backer for plaster. We essentially still do, we just use sandable plaster and only fill the gaps in the drywall.

if any rodents got in the walls they couldn't bite through the metal lathe. That was one of the advertising features back in the twenties.

Sheetrock is why we don't have nice moldings anymore and everything is square. Much faster and cheaper, but there's not much of an art to it.

We have a 1956 model home that has two layers of 1/4 inch sheetrock with a thin layer of plaster over that. I believe it was used for extra sound insulation since this model home was on a corner lot. We have the brochure from our local 1956 Parade of Homes for the house as well.

I grew up in a brick house in Wisconsin that was built around 1930. The inside had a brown fibrous material about 1/2 inch thick. A thin coat of plaster was floated over top.

Drywall (sheetrock) is truly a time and labor saving material compared to installing wood lath, however, if you want an exceptional wall surface finish, you will plaster over it...

In my 1950"s house the drywall has holes for the plaster to have a better hold. I have always assumed it was used in the place of lathe. The dry wall is very thick, and so is the plaster. It worked so well that when we bought the house in 2000 and had it moved 20 miles to our property, it had very little cracking to the plaster. California

I agree with you in that I see sheetrock as being an improvement. What I'm interested in these days is trying to match some finishes on drywall that comes close to the historical finishes. Mixing mud in varying consistencies and applying the mud to the drywall in various ways to simulate vintage textures. I have even experimented with adding sand to the drywall mud in order to give that gritty appearance that some plaster finishes had. I'm curious as to what you do in trying to apply a historic finish on to drywall.

Great and interesting video! My first house was a 1930 colonial in NJ. The basement ceiling and parts of the 3rd floor attic was finished in this " weird cardboard" material about 3/4 inch thick. I never know what it was called. I assumed it was an early version of Masonite, but this clears things up. It was installed with a wide head nail and where the edges joined, they used wood lattice. In my house , it looks like they covered it with a varnish or shellac instead of paint.. - Tom

The fireproof aspect of those early materials like Insoboard and Celotex was due to asbestos content so best to wear a proper mask when you run into it on a tearout.

Lath and plaster was the innovative product that replaced wattle and daub.

When discussing the insulating value of an exterior board, such as Celotex I think it’s important to keep in mind that the alternative was pine boards nailed on usually with half inch gaps between the boards. so even though the seams weren’t taped, it would still hold considerably more heat.

My building went up in 1943. The walls use sheetrock lath, a brown coat and a finish coat. The rocklath was nailed into the ceiling joists, but over the years some of the nails began to pull through. But even though the pieces of rocklath were small (24x48?) they were all held together by the brown coat, until so many pulled through that large pieces of the ceiling would crash down, heavily, all at once. Had this happen a few times. Putting up channels and screwing in another ceiling all the way through to the joist helped stabilize them all.

Sheetrock is nowhere near as strong as lathe and plaster... although it is easier to repair, even though it needs repaired a lot more often... but with the lack of craftsmen today... it's probably a good thing!!!

I prefer traditional lime and earthen clay plasters. Going with drywall on an old house in an attempt to reduce labor costs is akin to replacing all the old millwork with vinyl in an attempt to save on artisan labor and eliminate the need to have to worry about keeping up with maintenance of the wood. Sure, it can be done. But the end product will be missing its soul.

Your channel popped up in my KZfaq suggestions and since I do home remodeling for customers in Boston and vicinity I too have run into early versions of sheet rock measuring smaller than the common 4” x 8” sheets. In addition, I had to tear down a ceiling made from Celotex and looking at the backside of this product found a factory sticker identifying what it was and its uses. I was curious and went searching on line to see if there was any information and your video did a nice job giving the history about these 20th century building products. In addition when opening walls during renovations, I usually find products left by the workmen which, in my experience, are time capsules of the homes I have worked in!

We have a 100 year old farmhouse. We rent it. What's interesting is the wood, over time, has become hard as iron. Either that or perhaps the original wood was some very dense oak tree that grew slow and is very hard. In any event it has a great skeleton and probably could last another 100 years. And this old house did have 'slats' with plaster in some places, that is, pre-sheetrock. Subscribed!

So here's my thoughts on lathe and plaster versus drywall. Lathe and plaster walls would have been stronger and reduced racking on walls as the building settled over time. It took a skilled crafts man to finish walls smooth. Drywall does not provide any racking or sheer factor as it will allow screws to come loose over time and it doesn't require much skill to finish. The other point to look at is lathe and plaster walls do not fall apart when subject to water compared to drywall falls apart when wet. Also one final thought is plaster walls are easily repaired cause all you do is remove loose material and reapply compared to drywall you have to remove the damaged sheet and replace with a new one.

Thanks, having worked on a number of houses built from the 1920's to the mid 1960's I've run into a number of applications of these various products.

I saw alot of what you're talking about while remodeling older homes. Commercial work is dense glass and mineral wool as insulation.for exterior applications.nice video

I've seen blue color sheet rock about 18" to 24" wide, hanged horizontally as lathe. It was perforated with holes about 1/2" in diameter if I remember correctly so the plaster could key to. I think it was 1950s, not sure. Love your channel!

My dad was still buying and installing the 4 x 8 sheets insulating board in the mid 1970s. Plywood on the corners for strength in the body of the house with insulating board, which was less than half price.

Nice presentation indeed. The history of building techniques and materials is a fascinating subject. - Thanks for the video. Very interesting 👍

We call it plasterboard in the UK but it's the same as sheetrock. We still put a finish coat across the whole board for durability. Whereas in the US it's only the edges and screw holes get plastered.

My 1927 house in Syracuse NY was built with "rocklath" a paper and gypsum product with five layers of paper with three gypsum layers. Very stiff product. It was covered with brown coat and then finish plaster. The rocklath was about 3/8 inch thick and was in small sheets maybe 24 by 48 or 16 by 32. It was a long time ago that we demo'd that kitchen. The brown coat had horsetail in it.

I can tell you from personal experience that the Iso Board does burn, BUT it had to be in the direct fire for a considerable time and it burned very slow. That and the fact that the attic had been built right against the 100 yr old clap board lead painted siding saved the rest of the house when our attic caught fire.

In the early 90's I was working for this framing contractor and he had his own personal house built. He wanted plaster instead of just drywall. For the lathe they put up perforated drywall and then the plaster.

I’ve torn out a few walls that were 1930’s consisting of gyp board with metal lath on top of it. It was definitely a transition period. The rock was much quicker than wood lath but not fully trusted. Great video!

I've seen that fibrous board before, it was used in a tiny two room farmhouse that was built in the early 1900s. The old shack was falling apart but it was set on my Parent's farm in my childhood during the early 90s. I've seen it a few other buildings built around the same time. Going onto plaster one thing that drywall has changed that I miss is the introduction of curves in buildings. When plaster and lath were used it was not uncommon to see interior and exterior curved walls, now they're practically unheard of in new construction.

Thanks for the info. My dad had some Uncles that were in the plastering business from what I assume was in the 1910s - 1930s, maybe. They would start a job and get a down payment upfront, then they would go get plastered and didn't always come back to finish the job or so i heard.

We use those cellulose boards as external sheathing that insulates and absorbs/releases moisture and breaths now in EU building. Also we have the same thing on the inside that is meant for less wet environments.

I was rehabbing an old Sears family vacation home in NE Illinois and it was built in the early 20s. The house was mostly drywall, especially upstairs.

My 1927 vintage home is plaster/lath. The only substantial update I did was the main floor bathroom. I used "GreenBoard" drywall. I can't begin to IMAGINE what a pain in the butt a remodel with plaster & lath would be!

I am a retired builder and in my years of working on all kinds of homes , I noticed wood lath and then a drywall board that was only 2 feet wide and 8 feet long that had 1 1/2 " or 2 " holes that replaced the lath and than they realized it was better to leave out the hole .... todays drywall .

I owned a ranch home built in 1951 that had all its original walls…no mods at all. Gypsum lath, brown plaster, white finishing plaster. There were a number of settlement cracks that needed repair, but the walls were flat, smooth and very solid.

i love your channel. Craftsmen style homes are my favorite. Hope to build one

My mom and aunt live in two different phases of the same neighborhood. Their houses were built one year apart and I believe by the same builder, Allied builders. My aunts house from 1960 has 3/8" sheetrock lath and plaster. The sheetrock panels are 2' x 4' and have small holes for the plaster to lock onto. It is covered with 3/8" of plaster with expanded metal at the corners. My moms house from 1961 is just straight modern finished sheetrock. My house from 1952 is also modern sheetrock but was a custom home.

I’ve also seen gypsum “plasterboard” in NYC with many one inch perforations that was coated with the gray coat, removing the laborious lathing process speeding up the process by removing at least one phase of wall finishing. It was still plastered… And I don’t know the timeframe. Interesting video!

I own a lake house that was built in 1934. The upstairs rooms were divided by using isoboard, or something similar, tacked to 2×3s without any finish to them, just to separate the rooms for privacy.