I recently went to prep my dining room for painting by removing the chair rails and huge chunks of plaster fell off the wall. I noticed there was no insulation behind the wooden strips. My neighbor who works in constructions said I should remove the plaster and strips, insulate and then drywall and walked me through my dining room to what seemed to be a fairly simple process. Except the walls adjoining other rooms are now 1/2 way done, and the electrical appears to be older than we thought. this project that I budgeted 150.00 for is growing to thousands that I don't have...Where do I start? Can I just do one room at a time or will it be noticable...since I am removing plaster should we just do it all at once...and is this stuff dangerous to remove?

Pandora’s box you have.

Older homes it is quite typical not to have any insulation in the walls. If this is the case, you exposed also Knob and Tube wires. This means the house is at least 80 years old.

What would determine if you should remove the plaster and lath on the wall to insulate and sheetrock is the general condition of the walls. A sheetrock wall will NEVER look the same as the plaster wall. Higher end homes oftentimes request plaster walls to be installed because of the way plaster looks.

If your on a tight budget, Repair the wall with plaster and paint.

You cannot bury the Knob and Tube wires in insulation. This means that you will need to re-wire with new. The wires must be cut and terminated in an area that is not covered by walls. Meaning basement or attic area. This results in more wire work then just the one room. This can get expensive fast. Not just for the wiring, but for the repairs to the other walls effected to fix this one room.

Add to the fact that one square foot of plaster wall will result in about one cubic foot of debris. One wall will end up being a very large pile of garbage in the middle of the room. A very heavy pile as well. So now you add disposal costs.

Also plaster is thick when you add the several coats and thickness of the lath. This results in the window trims sticking out much farther then they would if you kept the plaster walls. Sure you can pack out the walls to bring the sheetrock out to the old surface level of the wall. But more work again. **$

One benefit of plaster walls is they act as a heat sink. The plaster holds heat real well and makes the room much more sound proof then with sheetrock and insulation alone.
Insulation on walls is a good thing, but the savings vs. the cost of going through all this work may not be worth it. Put your money on energy efficient windows, attic insulation and upgrading the wires first.

Patch the walls with plaster or the you mix fast setting spackle found in the big box stores. Replace the moldings where you want and paint the room.

Unless your willing to spend tons of money. This is your best option at this point in time.

As far as dangerous, yes and no. Some older home builders that installed plaster many years ago used asbestos as the binder to hold the plaster together. So asbestos may be present. Also lead paint on the walls and trim is possible. This can be checked by going to one of the big box stores and asking for lead paint test kit. Simple to use and will tell you in a flash if lead is present or not. My advice is regardless if you have it or not. Treat is as though you have it and protect yourself anyway.