How do I cover cracks in ceiling?

[superlambanana]

We have lath and plaster ceilings with big cracks all over them. According to the survey it's not going to fall down but they look awful. Can I sand / cover them myself, and if so what's the best way, or do I need a professional in, in which case what sort of price am I looking at for a 3mx3m room?

you need to clean/scrape the cracks out with a screwdriver or something similar then just fill them up. if you just sand them down and paint over them or only fill the little bit on the surface the cracks will come back again.

if you have a lath and plaster ceiling it is possible to repair it from above (I have done it myself) but it is very labour intensive and not worth it unless you have a fancy ornate ceiling or a very small area of damage.

If you can afford it, I would probably overboard it with plasterboard screwed to the joists (not nailed as the hammering vibrations might make the old ceiling fall down) and skimmed. Ask around for an experienced and reliable plasterer.

Ceilings usually cost a few £hundred per room.

If times are hard you can use a thick lining paper, or one of those expanded polystyrene "wallpapers" which is quite good for giving a smooth surface. However if you are paying a decorator it would be better value to replaster and get a permanent job that just needs repainting every 20 years.

I would avoid smoothover paints or fillers. The ceiling will continue to move and crack.

I know that I've got to get on with this as one bedroom is covered in polystyrene tiles. All of our ceilings and some walls are lath and plaster. S

there are a few plasterers who specialise in restoration and can do limework and cornicing. See if you can find one if you value originality. It will cost you double.

I have the same question OP

Piglet, if I overboard, will cracks appear where there are joins between plasterboard sections?

Also, what happens about cornicing if I overboard (I have cornice which extends out into the ceiling)

and does the old plaster need to come down in order to overboard (messy iirc)

ps thank you....

mini our ceiling is cracked in our bedroom and we spoke to a joiner about repairing it with plasterboard, he said they would cut around the edge of the cornice leaving about an inch of old plaster on the roof then infill the hole with plasterboard then we needed to get it plastered over at which point the plasterer would loose the join between the plasterboard and the cornice. don't know if that's the right or the wrong way of doing it but that's the way he wanted to do it.

pigletjohn im interested in how you would repair lath & plaster from above as we have some small areas in several rooms which are cracked badly, caused by someone laying flooring in the loft and using nails to secure it, and would like to try and repair it from above. we have spoken to several people about this but no one has heard of doing it that way.

you can overboard without removing the old plaster, but find an experienced plasterer you trust and take his advice. He will probably cut the boards to fit inside the cornice. Unless you live in Hampton court, the cornices wil have been cast in lengths in a Victorial plaster factory, sawn to fit, and nailed or screwed to the joists or ceiling. They can be taken off and refitted, but will probably break, and a person who is not a specialist restorer might not want to do the job and accept the blame. A restorer will know how to buy (or make) new lengths to match £££££££££££

the plasterer will (should) apply scrim tape to all the joints in the plasterboard and plaster over them. Preferably he will skim finish plaster over the lot. if the joists are reasonably substantial and the boards are adequately screwed up, it will not crack.

I live with the crack in our bedroom, the joists are stupidly thin. Each Christmas and holiday going up in the loft just cracks it again.

We think.it was caused by the previous owners clearing the loft. Neither of us noticed it looking round.

It's annoying, but harmless.

If you want to repair it from above (short version)

take up the entire floor above.

Use an industrial hoover to suck all the dirt and broken nibs off the top of the ceiling

crawl along the joists and pick out all the fragments between the plaster, the laths, and the joists. Do not fall through the ceiling.

screw stainless steel expanded lathing to the joists so that it is close the the upper surface of the old ceiling

put large flat boards under the ceiling and carefully jack them up or slide deadmen underneath to lift it and squash it flat up to the joists

make a runny mix of fine plaster and pour it between the joists so that when it hardens it will bind to the old plaster (which you previously cleaned) and the old laths and the new metal lathing and forms a single monolithic mass

Wait a few days and release the supporting boards and see if the ceiling falls down

patch any remaining cosmetic holes or cracks and redecorate.

thanks PigletJohn! no we don't live in Hampton Court tis a Victorian terrace. in fact I suspect the cornice may not be original anyway (previous owner seems to have adopted a slightly scatter gun approach to putting in "period features" )

We do have some original cornice downstairs though which I'd ideally need to match at some point as part of a future building project.... when you say this costs £££££££ ... what does that mean please?? rough idea?

thanks again and sorry to hijack OP

we have had this problem (but with actual chunks of ceiling falling down on us), and have done as piglet John first suggested. You can't tell the room has been over boarded, it looks really neat. And there's been no further cracks despite lots of work having been done in the recently.

We have a specialist place up the road that will match cornicing for us, by making a mould etc. We were quoted about £550 for a 4�4 room, including fitting. But, we have a bit of cornicing off the ceiling which he can make the mould from, so he's not having to do it in situ. He normally does £££££ projects in London, and have us a local price! That was still too expensive for us to do now.

Thanks, some really helpful advice. Our problem with over boarding is that there is no 90degree angle between the ceiling and the wall - the ceiling just curves round until it gets to the picture rail, which is about 1ft down the wall if you see what I mean. Presumably that makes over boarding harder because there's no actual edge to the ceiling..?

on an old house with L&P, that will have been quite labour intensive. The wooden frame is built and then plastered over. It will be easier to board the flat part, but you need someone skilled to do the edges. With luck the curves will be in better condition than the flat. Start by finding someone who can do it.

If the curve is less than 150mm you can buy fibrous plaster lengths to do it

If the house has been damp, the nails holding the laths in place may have rusted away and the ceiling is only staying up out of habit.

we've recently had the same issue. We were decorating on a budget so we used textured wallpaper on the ceiling. It seems to have done the job, its relatively easy if you're doing it yourself (I was a first time paperer and I managed). You can paint it what ever colour you please and it looks pretty good :) I hope you solve the problem though!!

pigletjohn many thanks - i thought it might be done that way and we spoke about that way to the plasterer but he had never heard of anyone doing anything similiar. However hes a good lad as he has fixed some of our cornices and made a mould of one and refitted it and you would never know it had been damaged. The cornice in our hallway had holes punched through it for pipework, which we promptly removed, and he managed to plaster up and fill in the holes and you would never know its been damaged - he was very good.

I know of three different plasterers that will take moulds/remake cornicing but they are all in NE scotland, we didnt find it overly expensive to get ours fixed but they werent large pieces.

"The ceiling is only staying up out of habit"
That would be my old kitchen ceiling then, the one I found all over my floor when I returned from work one day a couple of years ago...

Beautiful, PigletJohn got to be saying of the year.

'Staying up out of habit', love it