Installing a hang board on plaster/lathe walls - ZERO studs anywhere

Hey everyone,

I'm new here but hope that someone might have solved this particular problem and have insight.

I live in a 60s construction apartment. It is built with concrete floors and ceiling and 100% lathe and chicken wire walls. There are ZERO studs.

My plan - the same I used for my kitchen - is to mount 3/4 plywood on the lathe wall with as many heavy duty anchors as I can fit and then screw the hang board into the ply. This set up is currently holding up my full kitchen cabinets and has been for many years.

Any thoughts? Anyone have experience with this kind of install.

Sidenote, there's no room to build a seperate stand for the board - it's either on the walls or bust.

Thanks!

A5 hangboarding will make you even stronger

I'm thinking the kind of anchors that flare out behind the lathe would be pretty good if you used enough of them. Of course if you rip out the whole wall, you can put your own studs in there, man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu-MrncHpJo

Method worked perfectly for me. I attached the hangboard to some MDF and then the pullup bar to that.

If you don't have doorways I suggest a freestanding method... I don't know how you can trust putting your bodyweight into lathe walls... cabinets are one thing, human hanging over and over and over is another. 

Don't use anchors. Use toggles. Toggles with the longest, widest wings you can find. Alternatively, if you have access to both sides of the wall, and a long enough drill bit, mount the board with bolts that go all the way through the wall. Even better, slip the bolts through a piece of EMT or other tubing that's as long as the wall is thick, and then put some big fender washers under the head and nut. That way you are less likely to crack the plaster when you tighten the nuts.

If you've got access to a saw, you could also rip a couple of strips of wood or plywood or something with a 10 or 15 degree bevel along one edge, and mount one strip on the wall with the bevel up and its toe outward. Mount the other on the back of the plywood that your hangboard is on, with the bevel down and its toe outward. Then simply hook one bevelled strip over the other. This system allows you to easily take down the hangboard and reconsider your wall mount system if necessary. Wall cabinets are sometimes installed this way because it's so easily undone or adjusted.

If the walls are as unsupported as you claim, you can make them rigid in the area where you're attaching things by pumping some expanding urethane foam insulation into the cavity. That will, locally, turn the wall into an impromptu SIP.

Do you have a doorless entryway?

You can frame the one side with 2x4’s and run 2x4  on the upper Jam to create a U that stops horizontal movement. The framed 2x4 would take
Most of the weight.

Pretty overkill, but it means you won’t take the chance of having to pay someone to repair the wall when you rip something out.

What holds up the lath? If there are no studs I would expect either concrete or masonry walls behind the plaster and lath. If that's the case I would drill through the plaster and into the concrete or masonry, put in a plastic insert anchor and then screw into the insert. I like the GRK structural screws available at Home Depot and elsewhere. If there are really no studs or concrete or masonry I would not mount anything to freestanding lath/plaster, but I have never seen a wall like that. (BTW lathes are for turning wood bowls :-)

David House wrote: What holds up the lath? If there are no studs I would expect either concrete or masonry walls behind the plaster and lath. If that's the case I would drill through the plaster and into the concrete or masonry, put in a plastic insert anchor and then screw into the insert. I like the GRK structural screws available at Home Depot and elsewhere. If there are really no studs or concrete or masonry I would not mount anything to freestanding lath/plaster, but I have never seen a wall like that. (BTW lathes are for turning wood bowls :-)

I’m assuming the house has funky wide stud spacing or he is talking about a interior wall that has little to no structural integrity.

But if there is any doorway, there has to be some sort of bracing. 

Insert Name: I agree about the door, there is likely some framing there. My post wasn't responding to yours, I was typing at the same time!

Paul Morrison wrote: Don't use anchors. Use toggles. Toggles with the longest, widest wings you can find. Alternatively, if you have access to both sides of the wall, and a long enough drill bit, mount the board with bolts that go all the way through the wall. Even better, slip the bolts through a piece of EMT or other tubing that's as long as the wall is thick, and then put some big fender washers under the head and nut. That way you are less likely to crack the plaster when you tighten the nuts.

If you've got access to a saw, you could also rip a couple of strips of wood or plywood or something with a 10 or 15 degree bevel along one edge, and mount one strip on the wall with the bevel up and its toe outward. Mount the other on the back of the plywood that your hangboard is on, with the bevel down and its toe outward. Then simply hook one bevelled strip over the other. This system allows you to easily take down the hangboard and reconsider your wall mount system if necessary. Wall cabinets are sometimes installed this way because it's so easily undone or adjusted.

If the walls are as unsupported as you claim, you can make them rigid in the area where you're attaching things by pumping some expanding urethane foam insulation into the cavity. That will, locally, turn the wall into an impromptu SIP.

This is a fabulous idea, as I do have access to both sides. 

Also thank you everyone for your super fast, varies responses. In answer to a couple of recurrent questions:

1. It's an apartment building built in the late fifties early 60s. There are concrete ceilinns and concrete floors and then basically all the walls are non loadbearing, with concrete pillars probably hidden deep inside somewhere.

2. The door frames appear to be made of metal - no studs above them. This whole building was made without a piece of lumber most likely.

David B wrote: This whole building was made without a piece of lumber most likely.

They must have used it all up building concrete forms.

Paul Morrison wrote:

They must have used it all up building concrete forms.

Forms can be steel.

I’d use Tapcon anchor screws.  They are easy to use and come with their own pilot bit.
I wouldn’t use plastic or toggle drywall anchors for two reasons:  not as strong, and a little more challenging to line up the holes in the plywood with the anchor holes (and you probably don’t have an air gap behind the plaster for the toggle wings to expand into.). Make sure the Tapcons aren’t too long!

Ugh, plaster/lathe walls. I bought a 1925-built house last year ... never again. Thankfully, I do have studs, but there is no rhyme or reason to their spacing and because of the lathe it's impossible to find studs using a stud finder. I ended up hacking out a relatively large hunk of the wall, found studs four ft. apart, added studs/reframed/braced and was able to hang the hang board. 

Gunkiemike wrote:

Forms can be steel.

So can partition wall studding.

A freestanding setup could be doable if you make it so the legs fold up into itself. I made this back when it had to be in my bedroom and I didn't have a lot of space. Unfold it, hang board, fold it back up and put it in a corner (it stows at barely a foot wide). Now that my roommates are climbers too it gets a more permanent space in the living room and dual purposes as a year round Christmas tree.

anchor to the concrete ceiling?

JaredG wrote: anchor to the concrete ceiling?

That's what I was going to say

Zach D wrote: https://sheetmaterialswholesale.co.uk/sheet-materials/mdf/ 

Method worked perfectly for me. I attached the hangboard to some MDF and then the pullup bar to that.

If you don't have doorways I suggest a freestanding method... I don't know how you can trust putting your bodyweight into lathe walls... cabinets are one thing, human hanging over and over and over is another. 

A freestanding method defined in irb or found in a file is associated with an object referred to as "main", an instance of Object. At the top level, the name self references that object.

PS: And these things matter; it's Lath (a lathe is a machine). 

Source: former plasterer,still in the blood though. 

Gunkiemike wrote:

Forms can be steel.

Since we are correcting each other these forms are aluminum!

I like the ceiling idea best, a couple of nice clean holes and two anchors, done!