Interior paint Questions

Don't know who "Mr. Yelly" is, but my guess is that we have found Mr. Clueless, and he wrote the article you linked to. "in northern climates you use 2x4 walls and 4 mil plastic, you will only save about $200 a year, I have inspected a thousand......." Sorry, but this guy really has my BS meter spiked. The situation is far more complex that your buddy seems to understand. Vapor transfer, dew points and other issues come in to play, and nothing is cut and dried when making these decisions. That said, claiming that there is no value in insulation, or that 80% of all homes will fail once insulated is simply a large pile of bull.

So your "BS meter" is prooof that this guy is wrong? How many plaster houses that have had blown in insulation have you inspected?

Again I never said it was IDEAL, or that insualtion in itself is stupid, I said it was fine.

You're also wrong about most plaster homes being in the northeast, it's not a location thing it's and age of the home thing. Plaster was used up until the 1950s, don't know what percentage of homes are built before then, but I would guess more than not.

That being said, this thread is not about insulation or lack there of, it's about a crappy plaster guy screwing his neighbor with a hack job.

have a nice day

http://www.glenellynpreservation.org...b/plaster.html
"Unfortunately, well-intentioned improvements, like blown-in insulation, vinyl replacement siding and vapor barriers actually defeat the old, efficient system of moisture exchange and add little to improve on the insulating air pocket between the plaster lath and the exterior walls. Worse yet, these materials greatly increase the chance for damaging moisture build-up and harmful mold growth, as well as, trapping the toxic fumes from out-gassing paint finishes and petroleum-based furnishings."

I recently read that the average build date of a home in my state is 1904. That BTW, is here in the northeast, where we have tens of millions of plastered homes built prior to the early 1960's, when drywall became prevalent. This is also an area that is dominated by oil heat, which now costs roughly the same as gasoline. Annual oil bills of $3000-8000, are not unheard of here, in older unweatherized homes. I can assure you that a significant number of these homes have been retrofitted with insulation,resulting in drastically lower heating bills. Contrary to silly claims made by some, the vast majority of these homes are not festering plies of mold. As for your determination that the OP got screwed by an incompetent tradesman, much like a lot of the "info" you posted, it still has my meter pegged. Absent an on-site inspection by a knowledgable professional, I would find it pretty hard to determine the exact cause. How you dismiss the tradesman as a hack is beyond me?

Seriously? A website from a yuppie, upscale neighborhood preservation association. In the real world it's called building science, and quality information is available, if you want to take the effort to find it. This link is nothing more that opinions from snotty trust funders who are too good for things like drywall and vinyl siding. Here in the real world, most don't have an extra few grand to toss at heating bills, or a six figure annual maintenance budget to deal with keeping the 100 year old achitectural details and siding up to museum grade standards.

Okay, arguing with Mr Know It All, never goes anywhere. There are plenty of examples I could cite, but don't have the time or care to prove I am right and you are wrong, like you seem to need.

Have a nice life proving you are right and everyone is else is an idiot.

That's why it is so important to do things right the first time. Imagine how mad the original poster would be to learn that he had just built a $350,000 house and forgot to pour a foundation? There are times that a crack in the plaster doesn't indicate a bond failure, usually it a two coat plaster with rock lathe, however. The odds that the plaster is seperating from the lathe is so high that before the home owner spends a lot of money repainting the failed plaster, the correct repairs need to be made, to protect his investment. Unfortunately, once the wrong steps are made, the right ones are still needed. If you have been doing such a questionable practice of filling poorly bonded plaster and repainting, and assume that since you weren't call back it must have worked, let me tell you about how things went when I was doing that work. Homeowners would believe people promising good results for cheap prices until the work proved unable to solve the problem, which is what they would tell me when they called me to fix it right. They foresaw no better results recalling the same guy who had merely packed some mud in the crack and repainted. Just because you didn't recieve the call to fix it doesn't mean a call to do it right wasn't made.

Where do you get your figures? When my dad got out of the service in 1961, he and my cousin opened what appears to be the second drywall company in northern New England. The first started in 1957. My cousin bought my dad's half later. My dad wasn't upset and always felt that my cousin bailed him out. As late as the 1980's plaster was still popular in even new construction in New England. Most plaster at that point was skim coat (a single coat over standard sized sheets of blueboard), yet I was still doing plenty of 2 coat and rare three coat plaster. I had replaced rock lathe with the more common blue board for even 2 or 3 coat plaster. I still have my big blue plastic drum that I used for mixing, though, I usually only used a 3 man crew, so with one mixing and cleaning and one plus me troweling and floating, we rarely kept more than a five gallon bucket mixed ahead of us. I was by no means the last New England plasterer, either. Even today there are people there doing two coat plaster on old renovation home up there. New England was one of the last places to adapt to using drywall in the US. My dad use to tell me about those early days since there weren't many drywallers, they had to convert tools. He use to have to pop the first and last rivot on a straight trowel and push a peice od cornerbead under each edge to make a curved trowel for drywall finishing. New England has plenty of plastered houses to start with. Add to that that many communities require homes built long ago to be historic to be restore to original condition. Some accept drywall, but several require at least a two coat plaster, still. My youngest brother is still a contractor up there, and informs me of what the market of the old family business is, though he now does much more than drywall. I ask again, "Where does your information come from, Farmerted"?

I have mixed feelings over local building codes. On the one hand, I feel that much of them are currently driven by political interests, and not merely structural integrity. I point to low flow toilets and restrictions against detached garages. The part of me that is willing to admit that a minimum standard must be required is things like this. Farmerted, you assert that while you work in this for a living, you claim that if a home is plastered, it need not be insulated? While building an addition for a handicap person that would be living with their family, I went thru heck thrying to get the city to allow the electrical outlets be placed at the 24" from the floor, as code required it to be at 18" from the floor. Thank you Farmerted. Because of people like you, we end up with code enforcements that harrass those in wheelchairs that would have trouble reaching the 18" from the floor. The homeowner asked the state of Mass, back then, and they allowed it eventually. Today, I think the 24" box height is universally allowed, but, it is people like you who give ammunition to those who write building codes to enact stupid requirements to protect people from those who would not even insulate a home as long as it has plaster instead of drywall. Thank you, again FarmerTed for making a need for building codes. Otherwise, we could assume that no one wouldn't insulate during a renovation of an older home.

Thanks for your wishes on a nice life, I hope you enjoy the same. Don't know who you are, or what your resume looks like but, I'll fill you in on who I am. I have spent thirty years in the industry as everything from, a licensed electrician, licensed builder, job supervisor, expert witness in several construction litigation trials, consultant, plumber, tile setter, and the list goes on. I have spent the last five years sucessfully building and selling millions of dollars worth of spec. houses. I design, build and self finance all of my work. This is in an area with a Phoenix/ Las Vegas rate of foreclosures. Most of my competitors are under. I was warned many times that I was commiting financial suicide. My longest market time has been ten weeks, and the business has been exceptionally sucessful, to say the least. I will not quite be fully retired at 50, I'm gonna' miss it by a few months.

As for proving that anybody is an idiot, no need. I have no interest in cutting and pasting low quality information to shore up anything I say. I also have little tolerance for false information, or those that use low quality information generated by questionable sources . The audience here is real people with real budgets. Down to earth folks that can't afford to toss 3-5K in heating oil at a house, by deliberately failing to insulate the structure in order to keep things "ideologically pure" to satisfy the snotty, Chardonnay sipping, preservationist crowd. To put it another way, readers here have plaster questions regarding their 100 year old farmhouse in rural Tennessee., or some other similar place. They want to know what the most practical, durable, and cost effective solution is. They are not the folks that just dropped 1/2 million for a fixer-upper in Chicago, Boston or Downeast Maine, since have a "heirloom" house in their portfolio is as much of a requirement as a range rover, and membership at "The Club". That's where we differ, doesn't mean that your are an idiot.

Finally, telling folks that the OP hired a hack, and that you do perfect, callback free work, (having never did a site evaluation) is nothing but pure, steaming BS. It is what it is, we are all full of opinions, but nobody gets to make up their own facts.

Don't misunderstand me Whorton. I fully agree with what you are saying. The only thing I am wondering is what "Purist" is denouncing insulation? I've done work where the Historic Societies must sign off on the renovation, and never have a one ever challenged insulating a historic structure. I have seen many conflicts with the Historic Societies over Fire Doors and electrical fixtures, and a variety of issues, but never insulating the building. Since the insulation is not visable, it doesn't deminish a "pure" renovation. Plaster has been an issue many times, but not adding insulation.

Bob, take a look at the sources farmerted cites. Apparently there are more than a few purists who believe that it's wrong to insulate historic homes.