Plaster over metal lath

If you own a house with plaster over metal lath, I pity you. I pity myself more, since I've lost more blood and man-hours to The Metal Menace than probably anything else in all of the PolyCottage.

We removed an entire attic wall of this awful stuff, but most of that wall was windows. It still took the two of us two hours to remove a 30-inch by 16 foot section. I was hoping that would be the end of it, but the wiring on the adjoining wall is inaccessible without removing some of it. To compound matters, the entrance to the overhead crawlspace comes in between, so we'll have to remove even more, probably the entire lower 2/3rds. I managed to beat a large hole into it so I could see what was going on behind it. I got my flashlight and started to stick my head into the opening, when ..ouch! Scratched right over the eyebrow with the stupid metal lath. I hate it.

The aforementioned wall, after removing both the horrible falling-apart paneling that had been put over the crumbling plaster and the plaster and rusted lath. Note that this wasn't quite the end of it, as you can see ragged bits that we had to come back and clean up later.

What on earth could the people have been thinking who came up with this? It makes refits so difficult; cutting one tiny hole takes an hour. And God forbid it ever gets damp (as shown, from the inside of the wall) - it rusts out from behind and makes the entire wall look like cottage cheese. Crumbling, dusty cottage cheese. The bonus there is that at least the lath tears when you pull on it hard enough.

I am big on preservation, and I want to maintain the historical aspects of my home wherever possible - but metal lath is not worthy of keeping around (IMHO). The plaster over rock lath on the ground floor, now THAT is some nice wall material.

My method? I hit it with a sledgehammer anywhere there's not a stud, then when I have enough bare lath showing I use my snips to cut through it until I have a flap, which I then pull. I save the larger, intact chunks of plaster that fall to use for patches.

Definitely need lots of fresh air, a good dust mask, eye protection, and tough clothes and gloves. A good crow bar, a flat pry bar, and metal snips are musts.

If you plan on removing small pieces, then you need some kind of rotary tool (I have a RotoZip as well as a Craftsman cut-out saw - the cordless nature of the latter is a definite advantage for me) with a plaster bit to first cut through the plaster in the shape you desire, and then cut the lath underneath with your snips. A steady hand and a good pencil line to follow are very helpful, as is a circle guide for cutting those perfectly round openings we all like so much. Good music helps as well, to make the horrible time-munching seem less bad.