# Forum Home Renovation Demolition  What is this wall made of - Okay to carry on?

## Reader

Hi, I plan to remove this wall. I wondered if anyone knows what it is made of? It looks like a very white plasterboard with fine brown fibre, halfway between hessian and hair. 
This is the face of the wall:  
This is the rear of the wall:  
Also above the wall has this hanger (below) ending above the  beam at the top of the wall - it is a bit twisted. This hanger runs across the ceiling joists (you can the first one in the background) and they hang off it on some kind of metal bracket. I'll support the next joist back with an acro prop and put an LVL beam across the span. its 4m and I'm thinking of an LVL beam 65mm wide by 200 tall. Does this sound about right, or is there some kind of guide to selecting them I can use? 
Thanks for your help.
Phil.

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## Reader

I should have said - The house was built in the early 50s.

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## droog

Horsehair plaster, its what was used before plasterboard.

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## Led

Yeah horsehair, or the slightly later fibrous plaster. We had the fibrous in our place, built in the late 50's.
Can't snap it, it's like safety glass. Find the nail heads, run a screwdriver around them to widen the holes and pull it off.
It's also really heavy compared to modern stuff.

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## paddyjoy

> Does this sound about right, or is there some kind of guide to selecting them I can use?

  Have a look here for the span tables for hanging beams. Unless you have a massive room you will probably not need anything nearly as big as 200x63  hySPAN Interactive Span Tables - Carter Holt Harvey Woodproducts - Interactive Span Tables

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## tifflee

My ceilings are made of stuff like that, I initially thought it was a fibreglass of some sort.

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