How to Demo Plaster Walls

Close off the room in which you are working to prevent dust from traveling through the house. Hang plastic sheets over any doorways into the room. The sheets should be hung on the opposite side of the wall you're tearing out. Use the duct tape to secure the sheets to the wall or the door frame. If you are tearing out walls in the entire house, this is an unnecessary step.

Open windows in the room. This will improve ventilation and help let some of the dust exit the work area.

Put on your safety equipment, including work gloves, safety goggles and dust mask.

Remove any electrical outlet and switch covers by unscrewing them with the flat-head screwdriver.

Remove any trim in the room by inserting the pry bar between the plaster wall and the trim, then pushing back on the pry bar. If the house is older and has thick trim, larger nails will have been used to secure it to the wall, and they may be difficult to remove. In this case, it's best to have a helper with another pry bar so you can place the second pry bar a few feet from the first one and try to pull off the trim together.

Hit the wall gently with a sledge hammer to dislodge the plaster. The plaster has keys on the back of it that grip the gaps between the wood lath to hold it in place. Once you crack the plaster and its keys, the plaster will begin to fall off the wall and the wood lath will be exposed. You only need to remove approximately a 4-square-foot section of plaster in this step.

Insert the teeth of the rake into the gaps of the wood lath as close to the wood studs as possible and pull back to rip the lath off the wall. By staying close to the studs with the rake, you'll be able to prevent the lath from breaking into smaller pieces and the job will go much more quickly. You should now have a small section of wall that has no plaster or lath on it.

Hook the teeth of the rake behind the next area of the wall that has both plaster and lath still in place. Carefully pull back on the rake, which will remove both the lath and plaster in one step.

Work your way across the wall until all of the plaster and lath is removed and you're only left with wood studs.