In the 1916 Modern Homes catalog, Sears offered a new product: Goodwall Sheet Plaster. It was promoted as being far better than traditional plaster, which involved a painstaking, labor-intensive process of nailing up thousands of pieces of wood lath (small, thin wood strips), and then applying three heavy coats of plaster (brown coat, scratch coat and finish coat).
Applying the plaster was no small ordeal, as it had to be mixed on site and then applied in stages, with adequate drying time between each coat. Animal hair (horse hair but more commonly cattle hair) was used as a binding agent. If you take a piece of old plaster and examine it closely, you’ll find tiny bits of hair mixed into it. (Old building material catalogs sold cattle hair specifically for this purpose.)
The quality of the plaster in your old house today depends largely on the quality of the weather immediately following the application of that plaster. If it was cold and rainy, your plaster may not have been as long-lasting as if it’d had been a warm sunny low-humidity day.
Goodwall Sheet Plaster was an early sheetrock product and could be nailed directly to the studs, foregoing all the trouble (and expense) of nailing up 12 billion linear feet of pine lath.
Last night, someone wrote me an email asking if Goodwall Sheet Plaster had asbestos, I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV (but I am married to one). Based on my reading of Sears promotional literature, I’d say there is no asbestos in Goodwall Sheet plaster. It was fireproof, but that’s because it had gypsum, which is a naturally fireproof.
Products of the early 1900s that contained asbestos (a fireproof mineral) were heavily advertised and promoted as such. Fire was such an omnipresent hazard in early 20th Century communities, that if anything was fireproof or even fire-resistant, it would be mentioned in promotional literature. And if you read all the language in the ads for Goodwall Sheet Plaster, you’ll see there’s no mention of asbestos content. And why add asbestos to a product that is already fireproof?
To read more about Sears Homes, click here.
To buy Rose’s house, click here.
Advertisement from 1921 Sears Modern Homes catalog.
Close-up of page showing fire test.
Gypsum is naturally fire resistant.
Lots of benefits of Goodwall Sheet Plaster
And it won't break when nailed!
To buy Rose’s book, click here.
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It looks as if the “recommended” use of this product was under 1/2″ of plaster, forming what was later known as “rock lath plaster” (a USG trademark??). I wonder if Sears customers had a choice between the 1/4″ size to go under 1/2″ of plaster or the 1/2″ size to be caulked; wallpapered (I don’t think joint compound was available until the ’20s). Either way, the price of this stuff is shocking: $1.85 for a 1/2″ 4X8 (if I’m reading the small print correctly). That would be $25-35 at today’s prices! It was probably worth it just to save on labor.
I’ve thought about asking your or Rachel about this…I have these panels in my supposedly 1947 house. (I think it’s older, and two similar homes on street built in 1930s).
I wondered if you’d know what they are…and you do. I should have asked. You can see the seams on the walls. So they should have used a thicker layer of plaster after installing?
I don’t think I have a kit home. Only marking I remember is an Oregon Redwood company.
It’s been rented for 5 yrs. Moving back in so I’ll check for more.
Ah HAH thats what it is. The house I’m renting has this as I found while installing some low voltage wiring.
“WHO”, I wondered, “would be so silly as to put hard lime plaster atop gypsum??” And here I see exactly who would be. 🙂
Thanks for the great content site.