Walls and Ceilings - can sanding a wall be an asbestos hazard?

The wall paint is wrinkly because I believe the previous owner painted over wall paper glue. Can I safely sand the walls down without worrying about asbestos? It's a 1951 house who apparently had one owner that never changed much in the house.

I wouldn't think there would be any asbestos issues on the walls. Asbestos was more common in certain forms of 'popcorn' texture. But there is a good posibility that there is lead based paint on the walls.

IMO a safer fix would be to scrape what you can and then apply a thin skim coat of joint compound, sand, dust and prime when dry. Then you should have a wall suitable for any paint job.

thanks for the info.

I was doing some reading and I am starting to wonder how I can tell if the walls are made of plaster or drywall?

If it's plaster would it be expensive to put in dry wall? Also makes me wonder if the walls are insulated or not. How hard is it to take out plaster walls, put in insulaion and then put in drywall??

Plaster is usually preferred over drywall. Plaster is usually thicker than drywall. Most drywall is 1/2" thick.

Removing plaster and lath is hard work but not difficult, just messy and a lot of labor. If your only reason to remove the plaster is to insulate - there are easier ways. You could have a company come in and blow celluse in the wall cavities. basically they cut a hole in the top of wall every 16"-24" blow in the insulation and plug the hole.

If I went thru the trouble of removing the walls, I'd also consider updating the wiring. That would be a good time to add and/or relocate recepticles.

thanks for the suggestion. sounds like i should stick to plaster! Still how do I know if I have plaster or dry wall and if walls are insulated? I guess either make a hole or see how cold it gets in the winter?

You could take a switch or plug in plate off and maybe see the edges of the wall to help you figure out if you have drywall or plaster. Drywall has seams every 4' x 8'or12' and sometimes you can spot them. Plaster won't have seams but can have cracks in various places. Drywall is more apt to have cracks or bulges where the seams are.

I think there is a "gun" that measures the thermal [?] properties of any given surface. You might try asking in the insulation section of the forums - they'd know more about it than me.