Lath and plaster ceilings - are they dangerous?

[Celia1978]

We've just moved into a Victorian house and in the course of getting some quotes done one builder said we had to get the ceilings in the first floor bedrooms - which are original lath and plaster - replaced because they are a 'ticking time bomb'. He made it sound as though they were liable to fall down at any minute. They are not obviously sagging or cracked, though they are covered in lining paper which could be covering up some damage or problems. Just wondered if anyone had any experience or thoughts on Victorian plaster ceilings?! I don't mind the idea of having them replaced - though I know it is a horrible dusty job - but is it usually obvious when they need doing or can they just 'go'?

(I was talking to him about a loft conversion so I wondered if he was trying to get us to agree to replace the ceilings before his team started clomping around on top of them...)

probably they will fall down sooner or later. However I know of very few that fell down before they were pulled down. Big cracked sections are a bad sign. Pulling down an old ceiling is unbelievably dirty and is best done in an empty house with no carpets, furniture or decoration.

The ones in the upstairs rooms (loft above) will be worst because the nails will have rusted quicker, and the laths more likely to be rotten, than in the downstairs rooms which will be warmer and drier. If you go in the loft and lift the insulation (wear a dust mask) you can see how many of the plaster nibs have broken off.

It will be worse in towns or cities that suffered bombing during the 1939/45 unpleasantness.

If your builder is an experienced local person he is presumably basing his opinion on houses similar in age and design to yours in the same area. If any of your neighbours have had ceilings fall down, take it as a warning.

Thank you very much PigletJohn, that's really helpful. We'll definitely get it checked out a bit more closely. Sounds like if we do go into the loft it would be sensible to get it done at the same time. Thanks again!

When we went into the loft I decided that the whole landing ceiling would be replaced rather than patch up where the old loft hatch had been. It was lath and plaster and had obviously been cut for the new stairs. The builder told me it was fine.....and it was! It certainly didn't fall down when provoked. Anyway, I now have a new one.

PigletJohn has pretty well covered it. When we moved into our house, we decided to get all of the upstairs lath and plaster ceilings taken down. The house is probably 500 years old but the ceilings could have been any age. There were a lot of bulges and cracks (with dust and muck falling through the cracks into the rooms below), so clearly needed replacing. In terms of danger, yes there's a risk that the whole lot could come down but we were told it is more likely that chunks would start to fall down and the mess would be unbelievable. The builders that did the work basically "sealed" the empty rooms with plastic sheeting and then ripped out the ceilings - which came down along with hundreds of years of detritus - bagged it up and took it away. In the scheme of things it wasn't too expensive a job but it did uncover issues with the roof which could then be dealt with quite easily.

Just to update... we had another builder here today who said that they're OK for the time being but if we're planning to do work in the loft it would be as well to replace them because you don't know what's going to happen when builders start banging around above them. Looking at the ceilings in good light you can see that there are cracks beneath the paper but there aren't bulges or sags so I feel reassured that they aren't going to drop on our heads in the next week or so. We'll probably get it done quite soon though, and the only thing everyone agrees on about L&P ceilings is that it's an awful job taking them down! Thanks all.

We had a lathe and plaster ceiling come down in one of our bedrooms. My 3-yr-old (at the time) had been sleeping in the room the week before and had he been in there when it came down he would have died.

When it came down, it sounded like a great big wardrobe falling over. I ran upstairs three at a time to find my son sleeping beautifully in his little bedroom. Went to the spare room and could barely see through the dust cloud. When I registered what I was looking at, it looked like a huge explosion of concrete. It had dented the iron bedstead and ruined the carpet along with everything else in the room.

It was UNBELIEVABLY scary, so my advice would be to sort yours out quickly. They don't actually have to come down - your builders can cover them with plaster board screwed tight into the joists, which is what we had done in one of our rooms.

(sorry - didn't mean this to turn into an essay!)

screwing plasterboard can work if they have not sagged.

because of the way l&p ceilings are made, there are "nibs" of lime plaster poking up between the laths. They break off. Have a look under the loft insulation and you will see what I mean. If the ceiling sags, some of them fall down onto the sagging plaster. They are hard as mortar, so will prevent the ceiling going up flat if some of them have fallen between the timber and the plaster.

If you have complex expensive plasterwork, it is possible to restore them in a different way (I have done it) but it is slow and labour-intensive. Worth it if you live in Hampton Court, but not if they are plain flat ceilings with a bit of cornicing.

Ours fell down

In my experience they won't survive a loft extension. It is a filthy job to take them down. The people who did ours looked like they'd been down a mine.

We were nailing floorboards in an upstairs bedroom and the kitchen ceiling underneath fell down! Don't think the cat was ever the same again.

It's worth getting them sorted if you are doing other work, it's more messy than difficult. A skip and a few sheets of plasterboard and a ton of dust.

Obviously they are still in place now but there won't be much margin of safety if there is any disturbance.