A co-worker of mine stated that he had to put his dad through a plaster wall, and I am having trouble figuring out the best way to call bullshit on his assertion.
I can think of the variables (most of them I suppose). But I suppose there are all kinds of “plaster” walls. There are plaster walls that have the wood lathe as a base and then a scratch coat followed by the actual wet plaster. Then there are plaster walls that differ from that in who knows how many weighs. Maybe he was exagerating (haha) and meant to say it was really just a sheet-rock wall.
My co-worker weighs about 150lbs and I assume his dad weighs about the same. The materials involved would be the plaster, the wood lathe, the pine or spruce 2x4s (if he actually hit one or more while going through).
I am thinking it is some absurd number to the point that if one could muster up the force necessary that if one was to strike the victim he would just explode, and not be able to fly through anything let alone a plaster wall.
You can certainly throw a person into plaster wall so hard that it cracks and dents the sheetrock and puts a hole or an impact crater in it. Throwing someone bodily through a plaster wall is another matter entirely and is bullshit. .
It would be hard not to hit a 2x4, even for a slim person; 2x4’s are on 16-inch centers leaving about 14.5 inches between them.
On a related topic; in the movies the “good guy” or a victim is often just locked in a room by the “bad guy(s)”. I’ve always wondered why they couldn’t just kick their way through the wall, going between two 2x4’s. In most real interior rooms nowadays the wall is just half-inch or so plaster board.
Firefighters train on how to exit a burning building by kicking their way through exterior walls on some modern constructed homes. With the flimsy poly siding and particle board and sheet rock it is not hard.
As for getting thrown through a plaster wall, well sheet rock is plastered with joint compound and a curtain wall could be on 4’ centers, so yes one could be thrown through a wall.
I have never seen 2x4 framing that close together in a plaster wall. I have often seen 20-24". So I don’t think the 2x4s are going to be the problem as much as the lathe. I suspect it would be possible to come “out” of a plaster wall much easier than in. For instance in kicking through our plaster wall during demolition before remodeling, I would punch my foot through and it would leave a hole that was 110% of the boot area on the way in and about 3 boot areas on the way out. I believe that I could run through the wall, but I don’t think you could apply enough force to get someone else through it.
Most older homes with plaster & lath construction have 2x4s on ~24" centers (as noted by Disheavel), so that’s not so hard. However, having remodeled and rewired older houses I can guarantee that you’re not going to put anyone through a ~1" or more thick layer of plaster and a nearly solid layer of lath, and have them come out breathing. Taking down a plaster & lath wall generally requires a 10# sledgehammer and a large crowbar, and that is taking it out a piece at a time. (I hate doing it, too, because a good plather & lath job is high quality construction that is laborious to replace.)
Drywall, on the other hand, is almost tissue paper and you can punch through that stuff with a solid punch (although I’d wear padded gloves).
In the recent Bond film, Casino Royale, there is a great post-credits scene where Bond is pursing the bomber through a hotel under construction, and the guy (played by parkour expert Sébastien Foucan) does a crazy freerunning move where he slips through a gap at the top of the wall. Bond, being a little more brutal, just goes right through the drywall like a fucking bulldozer. (Apparently the construction codes and stud center placement in Madagascar–actually filmed in Jamaica–don’t match EU and North American standards.) It’s a great, convention-bending scene.
Yeah, what he said. A real lath-and-plaster wall, I don’t think it’s possible to get a human body through it even with a cannon. Keeping them breathing wouldn’t be the issue so much as keeping them from liquifying. (OK, maybe if you froze them solid first. And even then, I’m not sure).
But drywall, sure, I could see that as long as they didn’t hit a stud, though it’s not easy. And even around here where there are plenty of old lath-and-plaster walls, a lot of people do refer to drywall as plaster, so it’s possible that’s what the guy meant. It’s also possible he’s an exaggerating blowhard, of course.
(I think - but am ready to be corrected – there are also a few walls that are real plaster laid over a wire mesh instead of lath. I think it would be pretty hard to get thrown through one of those unless you hit a joint between two pieces of mesh).
[Stranger – by ‘laborious to replace’ do you mean that it’s a pain removing the lath and pulling out all the nails so there’s a clean stud to easily screw the replacement drywall to, or do you mean you replace lath and replaster?]
Even without the plaster, lathe is usually flexible enough that it’s difficult to break it. A lot of places used to use the thin-wood-lathe and wire construction site and snow fences. In the last decade or so the orange plastic mesh ahs replaced them. Those wood fences were very difficult to break - you pretty much had to attack the lath pieces one at a time; nailed up I imagine they were much harder to bow and break? Basically you are trying to rip wood apart with the grain, the one way it has amazing strength.
It’s usually a combination of lath and chicken wire, and (at least as far as I’ve seen) more often used in commercial buildings than residences.
Both. Because the wood is often desiccated and hardened by age (and not infrequently warped due to not being as well cured as modern lumber) it can be difficult to drive drywall screws and the gypsum sheet has to be shimmed to be flat. The advantage of plaster is you can lay it up thick and then sand (and sand, and sand, and sand) it to the desired flatness, but laying up good plaster is more backbreaking than masonry work. Two moderately experienced men can fix, tape, and mud drywall in a large room in a day, and sand it down the next, and gypsum is pretty good about being only moderately hygroscopic as long as you cover the seams. The same room would take a week to plaster, sand, and seal, and if you leave it unsealed it’ll suck the humidity right out of the room and start dripping off the walls.
I love good plaster & lath construction, but I don’t want to do it myself. I’d rather play with shoji screens and Japanese joinery than the mess that plaster is.
framing in old homes that have plaster on lathe walls is different from modern framing. old framing was done with slower growth wood and harder wood species. you would often need to predrill screw holes. drywall screws are designed for soft fast growth pine wood.
IIRC in the ending fight in Blade Runner, the replicant Rutger Hauer punches through two layers of lathe and plaster to grab Harrison Ford by the wrist. Of course, the roof is leaking and the building is dripping, but it’s still pretty much Hollywood.
If it’s a shabbily made older building with thin cheap plaster or particalboard, it’s actually very easy. Easy, like my college roomates and I had to pay a bit of money for the damaged we accidently caused. Well, putting on my ice hockey pads and trying to smash through the wall wasn’t really “accidental”, but you get the idea.
That was actually filmed in the Bradbury Building (or at least the stairwell portion) which is the headquarters for the LAPD Criminal Investigation Division.
Wow thanks for the brainstorm session. If at the very least everyone has provided me with many hilarious things to ponder on about this topic this thread has served me well.
