Borat_Drives_A_Scooby

Ive just had a whole room re-plastered and cracks are starting to appear on the plaster, i noticed a few hairline cracks after 2 weeks but they seem to be travlleing and their is quite a few of them throughout the room.

Now what concerns me here is i have booked a painter in and its going to be £400 to paint the room and ceiling etc, what bothers me a bit if he paints the room and these cracks continue to travel and possible get worse as it will show through the new paint.

What would you do, should i be contanting the plasterer or the painter first to get his opinion ?

Sonic'

Make me an offer and I will come over from the USA and sort it for you

I'll bring some bin bags with me just in case



Seriously though, has the plaster dried too quick?

I had a wall plastered a few weeks ago and after drying a bit 'evil' like it has been fine

fitzscoob

As its a problem with the plastering I would get him back first to fix it, and you might need to postpone the painter.

davegtt

£400 to paint the room? Are you mad?

What sort of environment is it in? Has it been PVC'd yet?

Borat_Drives_A_Scooby

No its not dried too quick, its been left for over 3 weeks now with very little heating in the room to let it dry naturally. The plasterer said it would be fully dried out in 2 weeks, i`m just not happy with these racks appearing especially with them travelling.

I know what your saying, i should have wrapped it up in some black bin bags with plenty of cardboard and parcel tape to protect it

Borat_Drives_A_Scooby

Its a huge room mate, we have just had an extension built as well and its all bare plaster at the min. The painting includes all the paint being supplied, the ceilings being painted, the skirting boards and door frames etc.

OllyK

I assume if it's a new build it's dry wall rather than browning and skim?

With a new build there is always the risk of some movement, perhaps more so if its over studding that may well have got wet and is drying out.

I assume he did tape all the seams properly and hopefully used screws rather and nails, or was it dot and dab directly on to the walls?

Certainly in the first instance get the plaster back in as it's his work that is affected.

fast bloke

Do you usually PVC walls before painting them or is that just a personal fetish

Borat_Drives_A_Scooby

Olly, the house is about 40 years old.

The extension was built and plastered by a differnt company than the one who did the plastering in the main room.

After the builders had left i stripped the old wallpaper off the walls as it needed doing to blend in with the new extension and while doing that it revealed some poor plaster underneath with a lot of loose plaster and cracks.

It was a different guy who did the plastering in the main room to the ones who did the extension, the extension is fine with no cracks at all and it looks very professional but the main living room part is now showing some cracks and they are travelling.

He did some blending in parts as he had to knock some of the old plaster off but he plastered over the whole walls so its basically all a pink plaster finish now.

OllyK

So is the plaster in the old part of the house original? Can you tell if it's browning rather than dry wall, I suspect it may be the former. If it's cracking in straight lines it's probably dry wall and due to poor seam taping. If it's random, it's probably the old browning giving up. Try gently tapping the area to listen for where it sounds hollow and where it sound solid to see how big the area is.

Neither is very easy to sort, if the browning has lost its adhesion, you can drill holes at the top of the affected area and drip PVA / water mix in to help it re-adhere. If it's plaster board it could be strip back the seams, re-tape and re-skim.

If it's a smallish area, I'd knock it out and replaster, either browning / bonding and skim or an all in one patch mix if you're in a hurry. My parents had a similar issue in their kitchen and I knocked off a 2 foot square are and re-plastered it for them at the weekend, only took an hour or so.

If they are hairline a cheat is to mix up PVA and water 50:50 and paint the area several times to fill and adhere the cracks, saves the rubbing down from using polyfilla, personally I'd then look to put up lining paper before painting though if you do that.

Having said all that, I'd still get a plasterer in to look at is as it's easier to see what to do when it's in front of you.

OllyK

Missed this bit -doh!

So did he re-skim over all the old plaster in the old room?

If so it looks like he may have taken a flyer and not preped the old stuff properly first, i.e. remove and reapply bonding / browning then skim over. If the old base coat has come away from the wall (hollow sound when tapped), skimming over it won't work, the new skim is only 1-2mm thick and will just crack as the underlying plaster moves.

drive

iTrader: (1)

dude seriously by the time you read all this,get the plasterer back to see what he has to say.........
ceri

Borat_Drives_A_Scooby

Thats basically what he has done Olly, he knocked some of the old plaster off which was a horrible grey colour and could have been the original plaster and he skimmed the rest of the room.

I have done some tapping and in parts it does sound hollow where as in other parts it sounds solid, to me it looks like its probably not bonded correctly onto the old plaster which you have already pointed out.

Does this probably mean that its going to have to come off in the worse case scenario as these cracks are really travelling, i have also just noticed that their is a long crack all the way across the ceiling where he skimmed over some old artex.

OllyK

Sounds like the old plaster has unbonded from the wall and he's just skimed over it. Get him back and ask him if he is happy with what's happened and what he's prepared to do about it. Worst case, strip back to the brick and replaster. How bad it is will determine if it's a patch job or the whole lot. If it's the whole lot it may be easier to dot and dab plasterboard and then skim that than go with browning again.

Again, ask the plasterer. But was it cracking before, if so it's possible that the floor joists above have some movement in them causing the cracking, artex was often applied as a cover up as the cracks aren't as obvious. Sorry to sound gloomy

Borat_Drives_A_Scooby

Olly, just one other quick thing.

Would you get the painter to call round first before the plasterer to give his opinion, the painter seemed very clued up and at the time when he gave a quote he said it about the plastering at the time that he had seen better finishes.

That way it doesn`t give the plasterer time to blagg anything in case he has done a poor job as i will already have an opinion in place, if i just called the plasterer first he could just say its something like natural settlement which i know it isn`t. Its just with the painter being booked for 4 days time he can get in early rather than the last minute.

OllyK

A second opinion is worth getting, just depends how much the painter knows about plastering to be honest.

At the end of the day, you paid the plasterer to sort the room out, you wouldn't reasonably be expecting to see cracks in a matter of weeks after the job. 2 years on and none of the plastering I've done at home has cracked on a 100 year old house. I'd get the plasterer in sharpish and ask him what he plans to do about rectifying the problem. This is assuming he didn't pre-warn you that doing a skim over job may not be sucessful etc.

Borat_Drives_A_Scooby

Olly, this is where the problem lies. Lets say he has done a poor job which i have the feeling he has would you want him in rectifying the job based on his previous efforts.

I am obviously going to get him back at some point but i aint sure i want him touching the walls again if you know what i mean, he was called out to have a look at the bare walls and to give his opinion on what needs to be done to get the walls perfect again. He shouldn`t have recommended skimming in my opinion anyway as the plaster underneath was very poor in parts but who was i to argue as he was the expert giving the advice and quoting to do the necessary work.

I`m just wondering whether i should get another plasterer in to give an opinion then call him after to say i want him to pay for the problems to be rectified.

OllyK

Well I'm afraid this is your call. Personally I'd get him back in and see what he says. If I didn't like what he was saying then I'd look at alternatives. If he comes in with a load of waffle, I'd be looking to send him on his way with a flea in his ear (have you paid him in full?). If he say's that it isn't acceptable and that he will fix it at his cost, then fair enough.

I think, but I could be wrong, that you really need to give him the opportunity to fix the problem if you plan to try and take him to court for example to recoup costs of getting somebody else to do it. If you just want it sorting and are prepared to pay, then you can obviously do as you wish.

gatty

I am a plasterer 10years plus, has the plasterer over skimmed old walls? what is the exact state of the wall before skimming

1. New backing coat and skim
2. new plasterboard dabbed and skim with scrimmed joints?
3. old wall pva'd/thistle bond it and over skimmed?

cracking can be caused by lack of scrim to joints or cracks before skimming . To much heat (central heating) on to high to quick. The problem lies with the base wall this will determine the cracking.

Wrong choice of plaster , renovating or gypsum?

OllyK

It's sounding like the old browning has debonded from the brick and the guy has just put a new skim coat over the top.

gatty

whoops!

Don't pay him unless he made you aware of the situation before he started.

or was his guarantee as long as your garden path?

PaulC72

Agree with the above comments re not prepared, etc.

Just out of curiosity does he do tarmac drives too?

Hope you get it sorted.

Borat_Drives_A_Scooby

I didn`t see every step he did as i wasn`t in the house all of the time.

The plaster originally was patchy where some was solid and had a strong hold on the wall put parts of it was coming away where it was loose and you could press on the plaster and large parts would move.

I think he knocked off the loose parts and did something what he called was feathering where he skimmed to the good plaster, he had a mate with him that applied this glue stuff all over the walls and ceiling.

None of the old plaster is on show, its not been what i would called feathered as that to me would be like a car repair where you fill in a dent and feather it into the bodywork, its more its been skimmed over entirely with some bad patches of old plaster removed with some of the old plaster still remaining underneath and you can see those areas clearly as its a darker colour of plaster where he has gone over the old.

Their is a big long crack along the ceiling as well now, he said he will call round tomorow evening and have a look and he also said he would bring some caulking what ever that is for the cracks to fill them. I don`t know how that will stop the cracks as they seem to be travelling and getting longer, i wouldn`t say fillling them would be a cure.

vindaloo

Ceilings can be a bit of a *******. Do the best you can off the guy.

However, as for the walls. I have the dubious pleasure of a house seemingly built completely of "browning". Once it cracks and starts to come away, the rest will quickly follow. E.g. Once I exposed an edge, I used a long paint scraper to take loads of it off in my kitchen. It really does get that insubstantial.

Disturbing one part of it will probably mean more cracks appear and more of it comes away from the wall. Long term best fix is to strip and start again from scratch.

PS: Now's the time to plan any new ring main/lighting circuits you may want put in.

J.