To be overly worried about this?

[Flamingogirl08]

There is another thread on here and the poster is worried about lath and plaster ceilings. It has got me thinking, I'm in a rented property and the walls and ceiling are lath and plaster. Numerous posters on that thread said the ceilings have just fallen in without warning!

Should I be worried?

We removed some lath and plaster walls a few years ago. It was HARD WORK to get them down and they were ancient! I imagine unless there are other structural issues with the house they will be there for a long time to come.

No

No I shouldn't be worried? Why?

Unless you're going to drill into them and get covered in dust you'll be fine.

Look out for cracking that runs to the centre of the ceiling. In the absence of that, they will likely be fine. Lath and plaster is more likely to fall of having work done to them – painting, skimming, hanging lights. We had one fall in when it was being skimmed. If you see bad cracking then get the landlord to overboard them.

Ive had lath and plaster ceilings all my adult life in various homes. I have five now.

Are you thinking of asbestos?

Do you mean whilst having the work done? I'm pretty sure my kids bedroom has been reskimmed you see so I'm worried about that also.

We had this about a week after we moved into our rented house. My 1 yr old Dd was playing in her bedroom as I was putting away clothes. She ran over to the window and a second later a huge portion of the ceiling fell down right where she had been playing. There was thick plaster and huge heavy chunks that would have injured her or worse. I still can’t believe it happened and shudder to think about what could have happened if she hadn’t moved. Our landlords got it fixed quickly and gave us a month’s rent free. Luckily it’s the only ceiling like that in the house as others had been changed.
I’m not suggesting that this will happen to you but it might be worth having a word with your Lettings agent/landlord if you’re worried.

See there seems to be so many stories similar to this and that's whats worrying me. God I hate old houses I just want somewhere where we can feel safe.

When having the work done. It’s heaviest when wet, which is what can cause it to cave. In dry plaster you will see cracking before it falls. If you are very worried, ask landlord to overboard, but I doubt they would without good reason.

That's a bit like being worried that you're going to get run over every time you cross the road, even if there's nothing coming OP. We have to live our lives, just watch out for any signs of cracks, and start worrying about it then. Effectively YOUR ceiling could last for decades yet, so get on and enjoy life, while you can.

look out for a saggy celeing is a good sign some of it may come down
look out for cracks
often previous water damage makes it worse
but I guess millions live with them
if you are really worried, seek expert advice
Good luck

BTW, the palters that goes over the wood and holds up the main ceiling plaster does go off and breaks off in the josits diue to age and it expanding and contracting with heat and cold - but as I said millions of places still have this type of ceiling

easy solution is get plastboards up and skimm

ps - as another said, we've lived in several places raning from about 120 years old to one that was about 70 years old - on one we had an artext skim and design when it was fashionable - it was over a lathe and plaster ceiling, never fell

That's good advice thank you. To be honest I am going through a stressful time and am finding myself hyper focused on certain worries.

Yes all the hall and landing are that awful artex stuff!

OK thank you for this

How do you know it’s lath and plaster, OP?

Oour artex when we had it done about 35 years ago was on a through lounge we put two rooms into one - about 34' long a 51 to 14 foot wide - the artext was plain other than the border just before the new covings were a few degin lines totaling 4 inches wide - TBH, it looked like a flat ceingly but we went for that to get the design it - we know the people that both the house and its still up today

if you are very worried, get a builder out - you can left some of the boards up in the first floor bedroom or go into loft and see how its clinging on the the wood strips but ours looked that most had broken but the ceing stayed up and ,millions of homes with this thing

There are usually some signs. If you have cornicing you can see if it's separated. Or bulging from a leak above. Maybe if some one very heavy is stomping around. But I don't think they just spontaneously fall. I've lived in several lathe and plaster houses (I'm in one now), and the only time the ceiling has fallen is when there was a roof leak and it was obvious it was going to fail.