# 1947 House's bathroom has metal strips on the surface of the walls



## rongomes (Sep 21, 2012)

Hi Folks,

I have a bathroom remodel customer who tells me her walls have metal strip in them every 3 to four feet. She tells me it is not those prefab melamine on hardboard sheets we sometimes see. She said the walls feel like thin plaster.

Any ideas? I may just have to go look, but its a 58 mile one way trip.

My worry is that it might be some type asbestos containing cement board.


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## Sir Mixalot (Jan 6, 2008)

Strange. You might need to go take a look at this one Ron. 
Hopefully someone else on here might know what that is. :thumbsup:


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## superseal (Feb 4, 2009)

Maybe shes talking ribbed lath and plaster/wet bed walls.

BTW...how does she know? can she email pics to you?


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## rongomes (Sep 21, 2012)

*Here are a couple of pics she sent.*

You can see the rust showing through the paint in the corners and above the door near the trim.


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## PrestigeR&D (Jan 6, 2010)

That it may be,......

But you won't know untill it gets examined.....:blink:



B


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## Randy Bush (Mar 7, 2011)

Well being 1947 better be following RRP on it too.


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## CCSERV (Dec 18, 2012)

In that era, they sometimes used metal screen or mesh to install plaster over (instead of blue board or lathe strips). So maybe it's that? It's especially common around the ceiling/wall perimeters like you've shown, though in those cases the wall/ceiling joints are curved rather than flat/straight joints.


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## madmax718 (Dec 7, 2012)

Is there a bathroom on top?

Here's my guess (just a guess). Its the rust bleeding through the plaster/mesh layer. Where you see that straight line is just where they had the mesh cut overlay. reason Iask is that it usually doesn't rust out like that- unless there was a long term water leak/water damage from above.


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## hdavis (Feb 14, 2012)

I'd assume it contains asbestos - you won't know for sure until you get a piece off. The metal ribs have channels that hold 2 edges of the sheets and are nailed in along one edge. The sheets are typically somewhere around 1/8 thick. The asbestos containing products were most often used in bathrooms or any wet area. It's a lot like cement board, with asbestos fibers to prevent cracking. 

BTW, tough to see much in the pics.


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