The best tip I got was from an old plasterer in Edmonton

I was working on a 1950s house in the Glenora neighborhood last winter, tearing out lath and plaster from a bathroom. An old plasterer named Bill walked through and saw me struggling with the dust. He told me to stop using a shop vac for the fine stuff and just wet everything down first with a spray bottle. At the time I thought he was crazy, but I tried it on the next wall. The dust dropped to almost nothing and the work went twice as fast. He also showed me how to tell if the original plaster was horsehair just by looking at the cross section. Has anyone else run into old-school tradespeople in Edmonton who gave you a tip that actually worked better than the modern way?

2 comments

2 Comments

betty_shah4d ago

Bill would have laughed his ass off watching me try to vacuum horsehair dust out of my eyebrows for a week. Tried the spray bottle trick on my last plaster patch and felt like an idiot for never thinking of it myself. Old school guys like that are worth their weight in gold even if they do smell like coffee and cigarettes.

bailey.sandra4d ago

The spray bottle trick saved my sanity on a similar job. Wiping down the plaster dust with a damp rag before sanding cut the mess way down. Did you try using a shop vac hooked directly to the sander?