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Old 05-13-2017, 01:30 PM
 
4 posts, read 9,118 times
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Hey everyone,

First time house buyer here! My boyfriend and I recently bought a house together in a good neighborhood for a very good price (less than 100k of other similar houses in the area). The caveat was that there is a lot of work that needs to be placed in the house.

Our three story house was built in 1906 and has plaster and lath walls and ceilings. We are not going to get rid of the walls, but we desperately want to demo the ceilings as the prior owners did a lot of questionable things to the house, such as placing long plaster spikes on the ceiling that runs through the whole house, rewiring the lights so that 3 lights have one switch, which means that our kitchen and living room of 2500 sqft has 9 light switches in very creative and hard to find areas, and plumbers always laugh at their DIY plumping over the years, which needs to be fixed.

Money is (and is always) the problem. Right now we are having the foundation fixed ( the house has to be jacked up over 3 inches) and everything is on hold until that process is finished (can't work on walls or floors because the jacking might damage finished work).

We do have the option of removing the ceilings while the majority of our things are out of the house. We both want to remove the ceilings, because in the areas of the home where the lath is exposed, there was water damage done to the lath in the past, so the lath pieces are warped and at the end of its life.

However, we are concerned on whether we could live in the house with no ceilings for 8+ months. My boyfriend doesn't want a new ceiling to be installed after the removal, because of the future plumbing, electrical and hvac work that needs to go into the home. He wants to wait until we have the money saved (21K) to do this.

On the contrary, I want the ceilings to be removed while we don't have furniture in the house, because of the amount of dust, debris, and mess that it will create.

We can live in the home without ceilings (we won't care about how it looks as we know it will be temporary), but we are unsure of what (if any) risk that might pose. Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated!

tl;dr : Is living in a three story house without ceilings for an extended period of time safe?
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Old 05-13-2017, 02:35 PM
 
Location: Riverside Ca
22,146 posts, read 33,204,372 times
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If you remove the plaster when the house is empty that's the BEST solution. You don't want to do this when you have flooring and furniture. Remove all the old insulation (if any) and dispose of it all. When you get ready to drywall get a few pods and mice all your furniture in it until the job us complete. I mean after it's drywalled taped mudded sanded textured and painted and flooring is done

You don't need a ceiling in a house. As long as the exterior is weather proofed you could technically have no ceiling ever. House will look like crap but there us no legal have to have a ceiling. Just like you dint need flooring to move in a house. When the plaster is gone, the insulation etc there is nothing there to harm you.

The best thing to do is fix the slab/foundation first. Go in and demo the ceilings. When you get to the edge where the wall and ceiling meet you want to demo the ceiling plaster back to the stud. The drywall will tuck in that groove you created it n that corner so the lath from the wall supports the ceiling drywall. Think of it as a T or a upside-down L. The vertical supports the horizontal.

Once you demo the ceiling you can easily start running the electrical, AC, plumbing,
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Old 05-13-2017, 03:56 PM
 
Location: Formerly New England now Texas!
1,708 posts, read 1,087,459 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SophieEd View Post
Hey everyone,

First time house buyer here! My boyfriend and I recently bought a house together in a good neighborhood for a very good price (less than 100k of other similar houses in the area). The caveat was that there is a lot of work that needs to be placed in the house.
Depending on where you live, you'll be spending more than the 100K saved to strip the house to the walls, verify structural integrity, re-insulate, re-electrify, reinstall plumbing, install ceiling lights, and bring everything up to code. It isn't just remove drywall. There is a potential nasty surprise behind any wall opened in a house, you will need to open them all.
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Old 05-13-2017, 04:12 PM
 
4 posts, read 9,118 times
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We are estimating around 50K, 21k for the rewiring, plumping, and HVAC. We are not going to strip the walls, only the ceilings.

The home is pretty structurally sound. We have to replace the main beam because the base of the wood rotted, but both engineers agreed that the house would be fine after that.
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Old 05-13-2017, 04:20 PM
 
Location: Johns Creek, GA
17,403 posts, read 65,535,896 times
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...about as safe as living in a tent. Then again, you still have "indoor plumbing"- not so bad!
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Old 05-13-2017, 06:10 PM
 
Location: Formerly New England now Texas!
1,708 posts, read 1,087,459 times
Reputation: 1561
Quote:
Originally Posted by SophieEd View Post
We are estimating around 50K, 21k for the rewiring, plumping, and HVAC. We are not going to strip the walls, only the ceilings.

The home is pretty structurally sound. We have to replace the main beam because the base of the wood rotted, but both engineers agreed that the house would be fine after that.
Electricians, plumbers and HVAC have a way of getting out of control. Careful that you limit your desires and get written contracts. If you pay hourly and live in the house, going over budget is almost impossible.
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Old 05-13-2017, 06:23 PM
 
178 posts, read 172,032 times
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If the inspector is coming to your home he will make you move out because the ceiling is a required fire rated part of the building. Generally they will let you slide if it is a room or 2 but the whole house wont fly.
Ive done many wall to wall remodels over the years while I lived in them. Just do one room at a time.
The ceilings dont need to be finished. Just dry walled and taped.
Doing the demo is unimaginably messy and there is lots of debris. However if you do it little by little, you can get rid of a lot of it in your weekly trash pickup if you put it in Heavy duty trash bags and dont make it too heavy. If the house is downtown somewhere it can be very expensive to have the debris hauled off to the dump.
Its quite possible that your plaster is also full of asbestos which will require lots mote money than you think and you wont be able to live there for months.
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Old 05-13-2017, 06:33 PM
 
4 posts, read 9,118 times
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The original plaster on the ceiling was removed nine years ago when the prior owners refinished the ceiling.... and added 3 inch spikes everywhere, so I am not that concerned about asbestos there.
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Old 05-13-2017, 06:39 PM
 
178 posts, read 172,032 times
Reputation: 235
If it was 9 years ago then it probably isnt plaster. Just skim coated drywall. You should check. If it is drywall you can probably just scrape off what is on top of it.
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Old 05-13-2017, 07:20 PM
 
Location: Texas
5,717 posts, read 18,766,387 times
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Can you live in the house with no ceilings? Yes, but you're not going to like it. Per your zip code, you live in Kansas City, Mo. You have over 50 days of temps over 90F and some of those will be over 100F. Hope you like sweat. Then comes the winter where you have 2 months of at or below freezing temps. You can't build a fire big enough to make it warm. The only savings you MIGHT have is if you can isolate each floor thermally. But it's still going to be hot in the summer, cold in the winter. This is not the smart thing to do so much as limiting the furniture you move into it and later on when you have the bucks, knock the ceilings down and finish the house. Then move all of the furniture in along will all of the nit knacks we seems to collect. I'd also suggest rethinking the exterior wall plaster being removed. You can seal any penetrations by removing the plaster exterior only walls. Add insulation as there won't be any in a 1900s built house. You'll be able to foam the, more than likely, wood window units to seal them off. It'll save a ton of money on the utilities. Make the HVAC system not work near as hard. Add attic insulation and you'll have the old house everybody wants but all of the modern energy savings materials installed. Makes for a real cozy home. I've done a few of the old houses like this. A good drywaller can make the drywall look just like a plaster wall. Nobody will know except you it all isn't plaster.
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