Any Lath and Plaster ceiling experts

[Madieracake]

Hi
We recently moved into a1900 tenement with amazing lath and plaster ceilings.
Been chatting with neighbours one of whom recently suffered the misfortune of their living room ceiling collapsing. I have now discovered many of my neighbours have experienced similar and I am in a panic.
Visible our ceilings appear to be in good order but according to the chat ceilings just dropped with no warning.
We can't afford to take ceiling down and want to keep originally cornice. So can any expert advis to the ine the best possible precautions we could take to ensure our ceilings remain up. Many thanks

No advice, except to say we had a ceiling in our bathroom nearly fall on my DD. It was very slightly crack and boom, 1/4 the ceiling came down.

We had the same ceilings in our previous house and had the boarded and skimmed.

We have a few hairline cracks but when we had they checked the surveyor said they were normal. Did the board secure the L&P in place?

Get them plasterboard over by someone who knows what they're doing. They can look fine but fall anyway. Having said that, falls are messy but unlikely to kill you ime as they're not heavy.

It does secure the ceiling if it's boarded properly.

Thanks. I think I will look into overboarding as this also seems less expensive. Has anyone tried to secure with washers?

as they're not heavy

They bloody are! It was like lumps of concrete coming down. I dread to think what would have happened if it landed on her.

A warning to anyone who has a lathe and plaster ceiling come down - either by accident or intentionally. It is very likely that the plaster contains lime. Ensure that when you are working on it or clearing it up if it has fallen, that you wear eye protection. My father’s lathe and plaster ceiling collapsed and he just cleared it all up, getting covered in the dust. This resulted in painful burns to his eyes from the lime and he needed treatment at Moorfields as a result.

Just to add, our path and plaster ceiling came down after a leak and not only did huge chunks of plaster fortunately not hit anyone, but also the classy artex contained asbestos. Ongoing nightmare thankfully dealt with by insurance co!

Our partially fell down, you wouldn't have wanted to be underneath it when it did. Had signs of bowing for a couple of years before it did, we thought it was old damage.

Was fixed by plasterboarding over.

A good fix is to go above, take up the boards and pour diluted PVA across the whole ceiling. You'll need one of those 5l drums from Wickes and you can do 3:1 water to PVA or similar, and then pour it on the back, it'll soak in and stabilise it assuming it's still attached. Anywhere it's dropping slightly, prop it gently from below first.
If you're overboarding watch out for clearance around the edges if you have coving

If you are in a tenement I guess you do not have access from above.

From what you say the whold building has unstable ceilings. The nails holding the laths up rust away over time so the ceiling is only staying up out of habit and may lose interest at any time

If it has started to sag, the broken snots above may prevent it being pushed up flat.

Having boards screwed up may do the trick. Ask neighbours who they used and see if the work seems good.

If it has to come down, you can retain cornices, coving and roses. These were (almost) invariably made of fibrous plaster in a Victorian factory and nailed into place when the ceiling was being built, and you can saw the rest of the plaster away and leave them in place. An experienced plaster restorer will know how.

Old lime plaster is very thick and heavy, and very good at blocking sound. If yours comes down, have two layers if plasterboard plus a plaster skim. You will be shocked at the noise transmission if you just have a cheap layer of plasterboard. The thick ceiling will also give better fire protection.

You can also put dense noise-reducing fibreglass batts between the joists if you have access.

The amount of dirt is staggering. Empty the room of belongings and carpet before starting, and buy or hire a canister vac and several plastic dustbins.

We still have Georgian ceilings in most of our rooms. We have thick lining paper on them that seems to do the trick at holding them up.
I feel confident about recommending it as a temporary fix because we had a plumbing leak that dripped down through 2 of them when we were away on holiday (about 15 years ago). The affected part of the ceiling sagged down 4 or 5 inches, but then bounced back (oddly enough the cornicing didn't fare so well).

The landing ceiling was dodgy when we bought the house. When that started to sag at one corner we positioned a broom(?) or plank on a cupboard beneath is and tested it every day until it became obvious it was propping the whole thing up. By then we'd enough savings to get the internal gutter rebuilt and ceiling fixed. It was filthy work!

I hope you can save your ceiling.

Hi, sorry for taking so long to reply. Thank you for all the helpful advise. Our plasterer seems to thinks securing into the laths with special L&P washer would work. Obviously we can't do anything at the moment so will need to wait till we are out of lockdown to start any work. Not sure if anyone has any experience of this. Thanks again

I had my whole flat boarded and skimmed and it was less expensive than I thought

Just to add at the moment our ceilings are not sagging and When I had them check by a specialist he said they were in pretty good condition. This is preventive measure as opposed to repairs. Just freaked when told ceilings can collapse with no pre warning.