Lime plaster gives walls a thickness and luster that is not only visually appealing, it's also healthier (walls can breath and don't get moldy) and more soundproof. Plaster walls only seem like a pain to work with because new construction has made us accustomed to wallboard. Worse, whole shelves could come tumbling down. The first step is to determine exactly what your walls are made of, because the methods that work for drywall are the absolute wrong approach for plaster walls and could damage the plaster. Because rental apartments in NYC had started out as single-family dwellings and over time became subdivided into apartments you could encounter a real mix of wall substrates, from plaster over masonry to wall board, in the same room. Still, I was always cautious about hanging things. Lucky for me, none of our landlords ever stipulated in the lease that we couldn't hang things on the walls or paint the walls bright colors, the way you hear many landlords do. The strength is also very dependent on the exact material the anchor is driven into.I used toggle bolts to hang these floating shelvesīefore we became homeowners, we lived in many rentals in New York City. Drop in expanding steel anchors have good tension, but are larger and more difficult to install correctly. A unit that hangs away from the wall produces a large tension (withdrawal load) on the fasteners and many masonry fasteners do not have good tension load characteristics. If you are on a common wall it may be masonry and mounting gets a lot more complicated. To mount into the studs you need to remember the plaster is at least ¾ of an inch thick and get screws with enough length to get well into the stud. If the mounting bracket is large enough, it will cover at least some of the errant holes. For a heavy load you need to have the exact center of the stud, so count on drilling a few holes. Measure from the nearest corner and drill a test hole. The studs are typically on 16 inch centers in older work. If the walls are smooth plaster repairs are pretty easy, so you can use a small (1/8 inch) masonry bit to go looking for the studs. The baseboard is attached to the plaster grounds and not directly to the studs. At the baseboard they are often 2-3 inches wide (at windows 1-2 inches is common). These are typically 1 inch thick wood strips. To create a level wall plaster Âgrounds are used around all openings and edges were plaster ends. The baseboard nail locations are not a good indicator of studs in most plaster work. If the wall is an interior wall it is likely a stud wall with plaster. Plaster can be placed directly on a masonry wall. They should be very rigidly mounted into the studs for such a large television.ĭepending on the building construction you may not have studs. If you screw in the mount attaching screws and they pass through the plaster and lath and there is no longer resistance, you're hanging in thin air. You can also "sound" the walls by pounding lightly with a cloth covered hammer to try to tell where the studs are (the sound will be less hollow), but actually pinpointing the stud is going to be a bit tricky. You can locate a "stud finder" at the hardware store that theoretically locates the screws or nails holding the lath to the studs, but often they're not very effective. This is important, because the plaster itself won't hold such the TV, and if you just screw it into the lath, you'll likely pull out a large section of plaster. You'll screw through the plaster and the lath to reach the studs (about 3/4" inch to an inch behind the surface of the plaster). There will be studs behind the lath, on 16" or so centers. Plaster walls are mounted on lath, which is in turn nailed or screwed to studs.
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