Zenpotter, I would never try to discourage you from repairing your bathroom walls with authentic lime putty, reinforced with horsehair, and smoothed out with a wooden float. My understanding is that 100 per cent lime putty takes about one year to fully cure. Regardless of what type of finish is applied, it will be necessary to fasten some sort of lath, such as wood lath, or wire lath, or rocklath, to the structure of the house. This is generally done with nails. You might have to actually remove more of the original plaster, in some places, to get good access to a wooden beam or stud, in order to securely attach the lath as needed. If you decide to use sheetrock as your backing for finish plaster, then it will be necessary to coat the sheetrock with an adhesive, after it is installed, but before the finish coat plaster is applied. However, if wood lath or wire lath is chosen, then you can apply a modern base coat plaster, pre-mixed. The pre-mix base coat will very likely contain chopped fiberglass to improve its strength, instead of horsehair. Since chopped fiberglass is not so good to breath, you should use come care when mixing this with water, to avoid raising a cloud of dust. Base coat plaster will set up in less than an hour, and can be coated with finish plaster the same day, if necessary. There is no great skill involved in application of base coat plaster. You have to mix it with reasonable care, and press it in place with sufficient force that it penetrates the lath, and binds firmly to the wall or ceiling. It needs to be troweled reasonably flat, and should be slightly below the intended surface plane, so there is some allowance for finish coat plaster. Base-coat does not have to be perfectly flat, or free of tool marks. Finish coat plaster is made from slaked lime and gauging plaster(aka plaster of paris). High quality type S finish lime, made from dolomite limestone, is easy to work with and gives good results. Finish coat plaster application is a learned skill, and not easy to describe in detail. As soon as the plaster is mixed, it begins to set up, and will harden in less than 30 minutes. You have to work fast, and there is a limit to the size, in square feet, that can be done in one mix. If the base-coat plaster is fresh, and still damp, then no misting will be required. If the base-coat has thoroughly dried out, it will rob moisture from the finish coat plaster, and interfere with both application and cure. Misting the base coat with water, before troweling on finish coat, will prevent this problem. If you decide to teach yourself how to apply finish coat plaster, my suggestion is to start with an area around one square foot, for your first trial. With initial success, you will gain confidence, and can begin make larger mixes, and plaster larger areas. The wall doesn't care if it gets plastered in small increments or in one fell swoop.

raaj123, Looking at the photo, I'm pretty certain that the seal on the flex line connections is a gasket that sits between the male pipe end and the copper flange of the flex fitting (similar to the gasket on a garden hose connection). It's not sealed by the pipe threads. Often this is a nylon bushing but it may be a rubber gasket. To make this connection watertight, you need a clean, flat end on the nipple coming out of the water heater, a good gasket, and the copper flex pipe to be in good condition. As you already should understand, the materials used for connecting the heater are wrong and it was poorly done. You can't reliably make this tight by putting some pipe sealant on it. What you have will never be right. If this were my job or my home, there's no question that I would replace the supply lines to the heater. But the heater itself is damaged and is already probably beyond its expected lifespan. What's more, you have shown us a photo of just the top of the heater - the installation was not done by someone who is qualified to do the installation. What we haven't seen is the gas line connection, the flue and the complete T&P valve and piping. Water heaters can be quite dangerous when not installed properly. They can explode and level your home, they can leak gas or they can leak carbon monoxide through improper venting. I'm not trying to be alarmist -- but the part of the installation that we can see is pretty bogus. You have said that your water heater went through an earthquake and as a result is no longer heating water properly. I've made an educated guess as to the reason, but whatever the reason it's clear that it was damaged and will not be fixed by flushing it. The right answer is to replace it and have it installed by a qualified person who can look over the entire installation.

"In order to repair the cracks permanently, you are going to have to ensure that the plaster is solidly attached to the lath behind it (if not, the crack just comes back)." Most plaster cracks are NOT caused by separation from the lath, but by movement of the structure over the years from settling. Unlike drywall, plaster has zero 'give.' If anything moves more than a fraction of an inch the plaster WILL crack. Some cracks are 'seasonal,' caused by the expansion and contraction of a wooden structure. They often open during the winter as the framing dries out and shrinks, then close for the summer when the humidity is higher and the wood expands. The first thing to check is if you do have separation from the lath. If you push on the plaster on each side of the crack and any give is felt you may have separation from the lath, or the lath itself may have pulled loose from the framing. While there are methods of attaching the plaster back to the lath, it also needs to be pulled back into plane. Simply filling the gap with glue is not going to fix the sag. Plaster washers are the time tested method of securing plaster back to the lath and pulling it back flat at the same time. They are then buried in a thin skim coat. If there is no movement you should try and repair the crack. If it returns you can try and determine why and make other repairs. I use Durabond and mesh tape. The mesh tape spans the crack but allows the Durabond to be forced through to fill the crack up. Make sure you can dio a smooth job, since Durabond is as hard as old plaster and cannot be sanded very much, if at all. Most of the old plaster was actual lime-plaster. A mix of lime putty and gauging plaster. The lime putty has a very long hardening time (think months to cure) but is very hard. Gauging plaster has a very short set time. The mixture has a moderate time without adding any further retarders to extend the set.

"My understanding is that any color of Corian can be attached to any color Corian." practigal: You are correct. Corian colors are remarkably consistent throughout the years, so a match shouldn't be too tough. Some Corian vanity bowls are thermoformed from sheets and the heat from the thermoforming alters the color from the sheet it will be attached to. A bevel edge instead of a rounded edge fools the eye fairly well in that situation.