Question about using a fish tape on old plaster walls

Everyone says to avoid them because you'll crack the lath, but I carefully fed mine through a drilled hole above the baseboard in a 1920s house last month and it slid right through a cavity. Has anyone else found a specific spot where plaster is more forgiving?

3 comments

3 Comments

tara62312d ago

Is cracking the lath really that common? I've run wire in a few old houses and the plaster seems tougher than people say. Sometimes you hit a solid spot, other times it's just hollow. Maybe it depends more on how dry the plaster is or if it's already loose. I've had it go fine more often than not.

olivia_allen9d ago

Have you ever considered that luck plays a bigger role than skill here? Tara623, your good runs might just mean you've been lucky so far. In my experience, that plaster is a ticking time bomb. It's not about being dry or loose, it's that the old horsehair mix and the wood lath behind it have been moving apart for a hundred years. The bond is already broken in most spots, you just can't see it. Pushing a wire through is the final straw that makes a whole section let go. What feels solid is often just a thin skin holding everything up, and then you get a crack running to the ceiling.

walker.max12d ago

Yeah, the "tougher than people say" thing is what gets me every time. I'll be feeling like a drywall ninja for five feet, then I'll hit a spot that crumbles if I look at it wrong. My success rate is about 50/50, which is just good enough to keep me trying and bad enough to keep me humble.