I’ve been to three timber merchants in my area looking for laths for my plaster work but none of them supply them. One did offer to rip up some timber (I think treated pine) on a machine into the desired dimensions, in my case 22mm wide x 5mm thick to match the existing. I had about 20 x 2.4 meter lengths made up for a fiver. They look pretty good and fairly sturdy.Will they suffice?
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Buying laths without having to seek specialist supplier
- Thread starter michael
- Start date
Gervase
Member
- Messages
- 1,500
- Location
- North London
That's blooming cheap, but I'd worry that pine wouldn't be strong enough, resistant enough to decay and dimensionally stable enough when wetted and later drying. For sawn laths oak is best, although chestnut and larch are also very good - and all are highly resistant to decay and don't expand so much when wetted. See if you or the timber merchant (who sounds like a helpful sort) can source some oak, chestnut or larch.
Gevase, I probably should have asked you before I started but jobs done now.
This isn’t a large area of lath replacement. It’s an area of ceiling about 5 or 6ft square above an entrance lobby from the street. When looking in section, this door/entrance lobby is to one side of the gable end of a single story property so immediately above the ceiling is the ends of the pitched roof rafters. There had been a leaky roof for many years before I moved in and had the roof re slated. The old leak had rotted the existing laths over an area of about 4ft x 3ft and consequently that part of the ceiling was starting to collapse. I’ve pulled that section of ceiling down, replaced a rotten timber lintel over the entrance door and built an inspection hatch in the ceiling which sits in a frame about 3ft x 2ft. Consequently the replacement laths only take up an area of about 4ft x 3ft (the area of rotten ceiling) minus the new inspection hatch, so lets say approx 6 inches of ceiling all around the inspection hatch. It’s all installed and forms a nice firm structure ready for infilling the exposed 6 inches of laths with plaster up to the hatch frame. As a precautionary measure, I treated the newly installed laths with a coat of Cuprinol wood preserver. Please don’t tell me it all has to come down again.
This isn’t a large area of lath replacement. It’s an area of ceiling about 5 or 6ft square above an entrance lobby from the street. When looking in section, this door/entrance lobby is to one side of the gable end of a single story property so immediately above the ceiling is the ends of the pitched roof rafters. There had been a leaky roof for many years before I moved in and had the roof re slated. The old leak had rotted the existing laths over an area of about 4ft x 3ft and consequently that part of the ceiling was starting to collapse. I’ve pulled that section of ceiling down, replaced a rotten timber lintel over the entrance door and built an inspection hatch in the ceiling which sits in a frame about 3ft x 2ft. Consequently the replacement laths only take up an area of about 4ft x 3ft (the area of rotten ceiling) minus the new inspection hatch, so lets say approx 6 inches of ceiling all around the inspection hatch. It’s all installed and forms a nice firm structure ready for infilling the exposed 6 inches of laths with plaster up to the hatch frame. As a precautionary measure, I treated the newly installed laths with a coat of Cuprinol wood preserver. Please don’t tell me it all has to come down again.
Gervase
Member
- Messages
- 1,500
- Location
- North London
To be honest, you'll almost certainly have no problems at all with such a small area - consider yourself justifiably chuffed at having got a bargain. But when you look at a bedroom ceiling and realise that those flimsy bits of wood and those nails are being asked to support maybe a tonne of plaster (albeit spread over a wide area) it makes you not want to skimp on laths. That said, I've done ceilings in reed matting which are as tight as a drum. Time will tell how they stand up to decay, however - I suppose the answer is never to let them get damp.