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A wall is metal lath on studs, covered in a coarse heavy plaster (or light cement, I don't know what it is) and over that is a thick layer of tile cement and then ceramic tile. The whole thing is about two inches thick in total. I want to demolish it.

The main issue is the metal. It's strong but stretchy, it resists smashing, prying, slashing. I can't use metal snips because it's full of embedded plaster. Thinking about a sawzall but I think that would be a big disaster. An angle grinder? I'd be grinding through two inches of plaster and cement.

What's the right approach to this?

I can pry the tiles and the tile cement off pretty easily. They come off cleanly in chunks with little effort. Probably not supposed to but I'll count my blessings. But the bottom layer, as shown in the photo, is the hard part.

enter image description here

jay613
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1 Answers1

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Bang the all the plaster off with the side of a hammer. Cut with sawsall until it starts getting caught. Then use snips. When you're done you roll up the metal and shovel the plaster and into 5 gallon buckets. Don't use larger ones or they'll be too heavy.

Finding and cutting the wires that hold the metal lath to the metal studs helps. Make sure it's cut clean away from the ceiling or you'll pull parts of that down.

Mazura
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