Hellertown, Northampton County
Plaster repair in Hellertown, PA.
Hellertown's oldest houses line Main Street, but its biggest building years were the 1940s and 1950s, when a new wall could still be plaster. Knowing which you have comes before planning a repair.
Plaster repair for Hellertown homes
Only about three in ten Hellertown homes predate 1940; the largest share, more than a third, went up between 1940 and 1959. Plaster repair here starts on Main Street, the old King's Highway, whose houses run from about 1800 into the early 1900s, built when plaster was simply how walls were finished.
The postwar houses are less certain. By the late 1930s, new residential plaster went almost entirely onto gypsum lath, and drywall spread through the decades after the war, so a house in Mountainview, where building began in 1940, may have hard two-coat plaster behind its paint, while a 1950s house may well be drywall. The two are repaired differently, so it is worth knowing before work is planned.
Hellertown
Main Street plaster, and the postwar houses that may have it
Main Street, now Route 412, holds the borough's oldest houses. In 1820 the town had thirteen houses; it grew after the ironworks of 1849 and the railroad of 1856, and the street filled in through the late 1800s and early 1900s. Plaster that old has been through generations of settling, seasonal movement and well-meant patching, and a repair begins by sorting the cracks that are only cosmetic from plaster that has let go of its lath.
Mountainview, begun in 1940, and Durham Terrace, whose 154 Cape Cods went up between 1951 and 1954, belong to the years when plaster gave way to drywall. A plastered house of the 1940s usually has two coats over gypsum lath panels. Its typical faults are straight cracks along the joints between panels, and ceiling cracks where heavy storage sits in the attic above.
Worth knowing
Check the wall's edge
Take off a switch plate and look at the cut edge: paper-faced board alone is drywall, while a hard white layer over board is plaster on gypsum lath. A pushpin that won't go in points the same way.
Traffic and old plaster
Vibration from a busy road can crack plaster much as settling does, and Main Street carries Route 412. Cracks that keep widening still call for a structural engineer before a patch.
Older houses in the township
About one Lower Saucon Township home in seven predates 1940, and those houses are as likely as Main Street's to have plaster worth keeping.
The work
How the work goes
The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to plaster repair.
Find the cause
Every repair starts with why the plaster failed: a leak, a settling corner, a ceiling carrying too much. Randy walks the rooms with you, and the walkthrough and written estimate are complimentary.
Reattach what’s loose
Plaster that has lost its keys but is otherwise sound can be drawn back to the lath with screws and broad plaster washers. It doesn’t have to come down.
Bridge the cracks
Cracks are opened slightly, bridged with fiberglass mesh tape and filled with setting-type compound, which hardens by chemical reaction and shrinks less than ordinary joint compound. A finer compound goes on last, because setting compound is hard to sand.
Rebuild what’s missing
Where plaster is gone down to the lath, the old edges get a bonding agent and the hole is built back up in layers, each stepped over the last. Larger openings can take a piece of board shimmed to the plaster’s thickness instead.
Finish to the wall around it
The repair is feathered into the old surface, or the whole wall is skimmed so old and new read as one. On a wavy old wall, the patch follows the wall’s contour; a dead-flat patch would stand out.
Questions
Plaster repair, Hellertown.
Our house in Mountainview was built in the 1940s. Is it plaster or drywall?
It could be either. Most residential plaster of the late 1930s and 1940s went over gypsum lath, while drywall spread through the years after the war, so houses of that decade vary. The edge of the wall behind a switch plate usually answers it, and the walkthrough settles it before any estimate is written.
Does 1940s plaster need different care from the plaster on Main Street?
Somewhat. Plaster of the 1940s is usually gypsum in two coats over gypsum lath, harder, thinner and more even than the lime plaster on wood lath in Main Street's older houses. Gypsum softens when it stays wet, so leaks matter most there, while the older work more often fails where its keys to the lath have broken.
Our Durham Terrace Cape has a straight crack across the ceiling. Is the ceiling failing?
Probably not. If the house has plaster over gypsum lath, a straight crack usually marks a joint between panels, opened by a loosened nail or slight movement in the framing; if it is drywall, it is a taped seam that has let go. Either is a joint repair, unless the ceiling has begun to sag.
More in Hellertown
Other services here.
- Level 5 drywall finishA skim coat over the entire surface, for walls that hold up under raking light and dark paint.
- Skim coatingRough, patched or uneven walls resurfaced smooth, often after wallpaper comes down.
- Interior paintingWalls, ceilings, trim, doors and millwork, prepared properly and finished clean.
- Exterior paintingSiding, trim, porches, stucco and brick, prepared to stand up to Pennsylvania weather.
- Drywall installation & repairNew drywall hung, taped and finished; cracks, holes and water damage repaired invisibly.
- Drywall texture matching & removalTexture matched so repairs disappear, applied where you want it, or taken off for a smooth wall.
- Popcorn ceiling removalOld acoustic texture taken down and the ceiling finished smooth.
- Wallpaper removalOld wallpaper and wall linings stripped without tearing up the wall beneath.
- Wood stainingDecks, porch floors, doors and trim, inside and out, stained by hand.
Consultation
Request a private consultation.
Private walkthrough & written estimate, complimentary. Tell us a little about the house and the rooms, and Randy will be in touch to arrange a time.
- Hours
- Monday – Friday8:30 AM – 5:30 PMSaturday10 AM – 3 PMSundayClosed
- Service area
- Easton, Bethlehem, Allentown and the greater Lehigh Valley; Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Fully insured — proof on request. Residential and commercial.