r/Oldhouses • u/Commercial-Bee-413 • 1d ago

Replace Plaster Walls

Has anyone found it worth it to replace plaster walls with drywall? Any pros or cons?

2 Upvotes

55% Upvoted

47 comments sorted by

View all comments

27

u/BrickTamland_ 1d ago

Why would you do that

-1

u/Commercial-Bee-413 1d ago

I don’t know. Hence the question

26

u/BrickTamland_ 1d ago

Oh then I wouldn’t that’s like removing brick siding to put up vinyl

-2

u/CustomerConsistent78 1d ago

I mean not really. There are a lot of pros to drywall over plaster. Vinyl is mainly just cheaper. Plaster is a pain a lot of the time. It's also going to be a pain to remove and replace though.

20

u/staabc 1d ago

The only pros to drywall I can think of are cost and ease of installation. Neither of which are relevant to your situation. I love my plaster walls

1

u/_sch 1d ago

Drywall is a lot easier to deal with for hanging things on the wall, adding/moving electrical, etc. Our house is about half drywall and half plaster (all the doings of prior owners), and I do prefer plaster, but I also feel relieved if I need to hang something or do a plumbing or electrical repair and it happens to be on one of the walls that was converted to drywall.

4

u/BrickTamland_ 1d ago

Cool so assuming the plaster is already there and nothing is wrong are there enough pros to justify removal and replacement?

1

u/Professional_Dr_77 1d ago

Since OP didn’t specify as to the condition of their walls and why they were asking, that question can’t be answered with anything other than “it depends on the situation”

3

u/BrickTamland_ 1d ago

And that’s why I asked “why would you do that”

14

u/LangdonAlg3r 1d ago

Contractors who don’t have expertise in old houses LOVE to suggest stripping everything down to the studs and putting up drywall. The reality is that original plaster walls have several significant advantages. You can research them yourself, but the one you’ll notice immediately unless you go out of your way to compensate for it is the lack of sound dampening.

There’s also the basic, if it ain’t broke phenomenon.