What kind of walls are these?

I had to open the bathroom wall from the backside because I had to redo the plumbing for the sink and it was a galvanized pipe so I cut it and replaced it with ABS but the ABS pipe was 1 1/2 inch so I had to make a bigger hole in the wall and the only I succeeded was using a chisel and a hammer and punched out a bigger hole. I notice there is metal mesh and maybe cement or plaster maybe and the tile is on top of that. I notice where there is no tile, the wall is drywall but everywhere there is tile around the bathroom I assume the walls are all like this:

Front of wall:



Behind wall:



The house was built in 1961 and I am wondering what kind of walls are they? Is that the way they used to lay tile back in the day? I assume drywall existed back then because the untiled portion of the wall is drywall so I guess they didn't lay tile on top of drywall back then?

 

It is a traditional mud bed wall. Wire lath is applied to the studs and then a cement wall is built up to its final depth and tile is added. This is mostly old school as these types of walls have been replaced with cement backer boards. If the tile on the outside is in good shape, it will most likely survive for another 50 years.

 

Interesting, and they could achieve a perfect flat surface of cement to lay the tile on? I know a cement floor is fairly easy but don't know how hard it is to achieve when you lay cement vertically instead of horizontally.

 

They set screeds to a plumb line, applied the cement and ran their straight edge (darby), over the screeds to develop a surface that is in plane and plumb.
The job of a lifetime, done properly it is just about bullet proof.

 

It's similar to a plaster wall in that it's up to the skill of the installer... and it takes a lot of skill and practice.

 

Is it possible that they used the same type of construction on the bathroom floor? I am asking because when the plumber installed a new drain, flange and toilet he said he had a bit of a hard time because of the cement floor underneath the linoleum, he wasn't able to screw the flange in the concrete because it would crack. I was like, what, I got a concrete floor in my bathroom and he said yeah.

 

Yes, walls and floors were done the same. I have seen many such jobs and even done the mud work for tile setters on a few where they did not want to get that involved in the job.

Since this was done with Portland cement and sand on wire lath, they can be tough to remove. Sometimes a lightweight aggregate like cinders was used that was of lesser weight on the floor assembly.

One of the benefits was that regardless of framing irregularities you could develop nearly perfect substrates for the tiles

 

Until the advent of cement board those types of mud beds were commonplace on all the better built homes. It's been a long time since I've seen that done in new construction

 

Somewhat off topic but that rubber connector between the new ABS and the old galvanized piping is incorrect. All rubber connectors are limited to underground usage, this one should have a metal shield. That is to be code compliant although I don't think you would have an alignment problem (the reason for the metal shield) so I wouldn't be in any hurry to change this for the shielded coupling.

 

Ah ok, I did not know that. I seen them in store but did not know what they were use for. So how does the metal shield around the rubber allow you to align the pipe? Does it bend and keep the rubber in the given position?

 

You misunderstand, the pipes need to be in alignment without the coupler and the metal shield simply prevents them from getting out of alignment. With the rubber only the pipes could shift in relationship to each other and in the process tear the rubber or at least provide a less-than-optimal flow through the fitting.

When used underground the rubber alone is sufficient because the surrounding earth (all around the fitting and pipes) will prevent any independent movement.

 

I see what you mean, so if the pipe was not supported correctly it could shift and the metal around the rubber would prevent that. When you use these conectors do you have to butt the pipes against each other inside the fitting? Because I didn't do that and I was wondering if water can get on the outside of the pipe between the rubber and the pipe and leak from there?

 

The rubber is formed with a "stop" in the center and ideally the pipes will butt up against the stop. In practice I suspect often times that at least one of the pipes will not fit all the way to the stop but I have never seen one leak that had the pipe close to the stop.