Randy’s Painting & Drywall

Easton, Northampton County

Plaster repair in Easton, PA.

More than six in ten Easton homes were built before 1940. Under College Hill's slate roofs and against downtown's old brick, plaster damage often starts outside the room, and so does a lasting repair.

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A period foyer and staircase mid-renovation, the floor strewn with stripped material and a painter at work.
Before: a period foyer mid-renovation.

Plaster repair for Easton homes

Most of the city's older houses went up after 1850, and building carried on into the 1930s; more than six in ten Easton homes still date from before 1940. Plaster was the ordinary wall for that whole span, so a West Ward row home, a downtown brick house or a College Hill Victorian was almost certainly built with plaster walls, whatever has happened to them since.

What sits behind that plaster varies. Masonry is the city's most common way of building, and in brick and stone houses the plaster on outside walls may be laid straight onto the masonry, while frame houses, and the frame additions common at the side and back of masonry ones, carry it on lath. A repair that suits one can fail on the other, so the first question on an Easton wall is what it is made of.

Easton

Slate roofs, soft mortar and the plaster under them

On College Hill, built up from the 1830s to 1940, the National Register nomination lists brick, stone, and frame clad in clapboard or stucco, and calls slate the overwhelmingly common roof. A slipped slate or worn flashing usually shows first as a stain on a top-floor ceiling. Act on it early: water that softens ceiling plaster, or rusts the nails holding its lath, can bring a section down.

Downtown, a slight majority of the historic district's buildings are brick or stone, and across the city row homes and twins outnumber detached houses, so much of Easton's plaster sits on masonry, shared party walls included. The city's guidelines note that masonry built before about 1910 used no Portland cement and should be repointed with soft mortar. Where joints have washed out, water gets into the wall, and the plaster inside shows it as stains and lifting paint.

A restored period dining room with smooth white walls, a white corner fireplace, a glass pendant and wall sconces.
After: the same house’s dining room, restored.

Worth knowing

  1. Stop the water, then let it dry

    A stain under slate or on the inside of a brick wall is traced to its source, and the wall is given time to dry, before any patching starts.

  2. Party walls have two sides

    In a row home or twin, damp in the shared wall can begin on the neighbor's side of the roof line or gutter, and finding it may take a conversation next door.

  3. Who reviews what

    The Historic District Commission looks at exterior changes visible from a public way in the downtown district, and plaster work inside a house is not one of them. Check with the city before masonry work that goes with a repair.

The work

How the work goes

The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to plaster repair.

A stripped period wall of failing plaster, patched in places, with a bucket and loose paper on the floor.
Before: a period wall stripped back to failing plaster.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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, Easton.

Our downtown Easton house is brick. Should the walls be repointed before the plaster inside is repaired?

If the damage is on the inside of an outside wall, usually yes. Water coming through open joints will keep spoiling new plaster, and the city's guidelines call for soft, lime-rich mortar on masonry laid before about 1910. Once the joints are sound and the wall has dried, the plaster repair has a dry, solid wall to hold to.

Years ago a slate leak stained the ceiling of our top-floor bedroom on College Hill. Does it need more than paint?

If the plaster is dry, hard and tight to the ceiling, a stain-blocking primer and fresh paint may be enough. If it sags, sounds hollow when tapped or gives under gentle pressure, the water has loosened it from the lath, and that area is reattached or rebuilt before anything is painted. Randy looks at exactly this during the walkthrough.

Is plaster repair much of an issue in Forks Township?

Rarely. About half of Forks Township's homes were built in 2000 or later and most of the rest since 1980, all of them with drywall. Around Easton, old plaster belongs to the city and to the adjoining boroughs of Wilson, West Easton and Glendon, where more than half the homes predate 1940.

More in Easton

Other services here.

  1. Level 5 drywall finishA skim coat over the entire surface, for walls that hold up under raking light and dark paint.
  2. Skim coatingRough, patched or uneven walls resurfaced smooth, often after wallpaper comes down.
  3. Interior paintingWalls, ceilings, trim, doors and millwork, prepared properly and finished clean.
  4. Exterior paintingSiding, trim, porches, stucco and brick, prepared to stand up to Pennsylvania weather.
  5. Drywall installation & repairNew drywall hung, taped and finished; cracks, holes and water damage repaired invisibly.
  6. Drywall texture matching & removalTexture matched so repairs disappear, applied where you want it, or taken off for a smooth wall.
  7. Popcorn ceiling removalOld acoustic texture taken down and the ceiling finished smooth.
  8. Wallpaper removalOld wallpaper and wall linings stripped without tearing up the wall beneath.
  9. 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.

Randy’sPainting & DrywallReply card
The project
Preferred contact

Walkthrough & written estimate, complimentary.