Macungie, Lehigh County
Plaster repair in Macungie, PA.
Only about one Macungie home in six predates 1940, and those older houses along Main Street are where the plaster is. Most of the borough, and nearly all of Lower Macungie around it, is drywall.
Plaster repair for Macungie homes
Plaster is the exception in Macungie, and it is worth saying so plainly. About one home in six was built before 1940; the 1980s added more homes than any other decade, and Lower Macungie Township, which nearly surrounds the borough, built about a third of its homes in the 2000s alone. Those later houses are drywall.
The older houses are another matter. The village began in 1776 as log houses along a muddy Main Street, and across the area log and frame gave way in time to brick and stone. Houses from before 1940, along and near Main Street, were plastered throughout, and their plaster is usually worth keeping: dense, quiet between rooms, and set to the depth the original trim was built around.
Macungie
Pre-1940 houses on Main Street, inside and out
The borough's zoning treats buildings from 1940 or earlier with care. Removing part of one where the street can see it, down to a front porch roof or porch columns, counts as partial demolition and goes to the Zoning Hearing Board, and owners are expected to keep roofs, cornices, columns and lintels in repair. Those are the parts of an old house that keep water out, which is where its plaster comes in.
Much of the plaster damage in houses this age starts with water: a roof or cornice letting rain in at the top of the house, a gutter overflowing against brick or stone, a pipe leaking inside a wall. Keeping the roof and cornice sound spares the top-floor ceilings most of all, since a ceiling is the first plaster to sag once water has loosened it.
Worth knowing
Brick and stone show it first
Plaster on the inside of a masonry wall shows outside trouble early: stains and peeling paint usually trace back to joints, gutters or ground sloping toward the house.
Let roof repairs dry out
After a roof or cornice repair, give the top-floor plaster time to dry before it is patched. A repair over damp plaster tends not to hold.
Older houses in the township
Fewer than one Lower Macungie home in twenty predates 1940, but the township's older brick and stone houses have plaster that raises the same questions as Main Street's.
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, Macungie.
Does Macungie's ordinance on older buildings cover plaster work inside the house?
No. The rule applies to buildings from 1940 or earlier and defines demolition as removing all or part of the exterior, so interior work such as plaster repair falls outside it. Changes to a porch, cornice or other feature facing the street are another matter; check with the borough before those.
Our house is from the 1980s. Is there any plaster in it?
Very likely not. Houses of the 1980s, the borough's busiest building decade, were built with drywall, and their cracks, nail pops and patches are a drywall repair. In Macungie, plaster belongs to the houses built before 1940.
We found animal hair in the old plaster when a wall was opened. What does that tell us?
It points to lime plaster, which was mixed with cattle or hog hair as a binder until gypsum replaced it around 1900. That fits an older house along Main Street, and lime plaster repairs well once the wall is dry and the plaster around the opening still holds to its lath.
More in Macungie
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.