Emmaus, Lehigh County
Skim coating in Emmaus, PA.
The 1950s were Emmaus's biggest building decade, and about a quarter of its homes are older still. Both generations of wall come to a skim coat carrying decades of holes, cracks and patches.
Skim coating for Emmaus homes
The borough grew fastest after the war. Its population rose by almost a third in the 1950s, and that decade alone accounts for about one in five homes standing in Emmaus today. Houses built then are around seventy years old, and their walls have been through several sets of owners, each with their own shelves, televisions and paint colors.
Those layers are why skimming makes sense here. Every filled hole and touched-up patch soaks up paint at its own rate, so a wall with dozens of them looks blotchy under any sheen. A thin coat of compound over the entire wall evens out both the surface and the way it takes primer, and the finish dries to one even sheen.
Emmaus
The 1950s house and the prewar plaster before it
Roughly 27 percent of the borough's homes were built before 1940 and another 21 percent in the 1950s, its largest single decade. The postwar houses filled Emmaus out to the size it reached by the 1960s, when building met the borough line on every side. Their walls are old enough to have been patched, re-patched and painted over many times, yet they are rarely unsound, so skimming them is usually a matter of surface rather than structure.
The prewar houses are a different story. Their walls are plaster on wood lath, lime plaster in the oldest of them, and lath swells and shrinks with the seasons, which is why long horizontal cracks are so common in houses of that age. Plaster that has let go of the lath is fastened back, the cracks are bridged with mesh tape, and only then does the skim go on.
Worth knowing
Loose tape is re-bedded
On early drywall, joint tape that has bubbled or let go is cut out and bedded again before the skim. Covered over as it is, loose tape keeps lifting.
Hardware comes out first
Old anchors, nails and screws are pulled or set below the surface before skimming. Anything left standing proud shows through thin coats.
Ceilings in the same pass
If the ceiling carries the same patchwork, skimming it along with the walls keeps the dust and disruption to one round instead of two.
The work
How the work goes
The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to skim coating.
Walkthrough and estimate
Randy walks the rooms with you, looks at how sound the plaster and old paint are, and explains what each wall needs. The walkthrough and written estimate are complimentary.
Repairs first
Loose plaster is reattached, cracks are opened and bridged with mesh tape, and deep holes are filled with setting-type compound, which shrinks less than ordinary joint compound. A skim over an unsound wall only hides the problem for a while.
Clean, dull, seal
Walls are washed and glossy paint is dulled so the compound can grip. Torn paper facing and leftover wallpaper paste are sealed with an oil- or shellac-based primer, because water in the compound would make them bubble.
Thin coats, edge to edge
Compound is spread over the whole wall and wiped back tight, then left to dry hard before the next pass. Thin coats, never one heavy one: thick compound shrinks and cracks as it dries.
Sand, prime, paint
The dry wall is sanded smooth and cleaned of dust. Primer evens out how the surface absorbs, so the paint dries to the same sheen everywhere.
Questions
Skim coating, Emmaus.
How can we tell whether our 1950s Emmaus house has plaster or drywall?
Take off an outlet or switch cover and look at the cut edge. Plaster shows layers and some thickness; drywall is a single paper-faced board. Houses of that decade can have either, and both take a skim coat; what changes is the repair work underneath.
The plaster ceiling in our prewar Emmaus house sags in one spot. Can it be skimmed?
Not until it is secured. A sag usually means the plaster has broken its keys and pulled away from the lath. It can often be drawn back up with screws and plaster washers, or cut out and patched where it has gone too far; skimming a sagging ceiling would only add weight to it.
Can we stay in the house while the walls are skimmed?
Usually, working room by room. Sanding makes fine dust, so the room being worked is sealed off and the rest of the house stays in use; a kitchen or an only bathroom takes more planning. The walkthrough is where the order of rooms gets settled.
More in Emmaus
Other services here.
- Level 5 drywall finishA skim coat over the entire surface, for walls that hold up under raking light and dark paint.
- Plaster repairCracked, loose and failing plaster in older homes, repaired and made sound.
- 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.