The ceiling in my home office is,I believe plaster and lath. It's starting to crack, but I'm afraid to repair it as it could make things worse, because I don't exactly know what the paster is attached to or where. There seems to be some kind of visqueen behind the plaster, which is heavily textured. We have odd angles where the ceiling is pitched, and the past repairs/remodel were either done in haste or without experience. This is an old house, about 180 years that has been split up into apartments. If there is any way to repair this mess without causing more damage, please let me know!
Thanks Beth
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Thu, 06/28/2012 - 14:12
#1
Beth Erdmann
Home office, plaster and lath ceiling repair?
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I don't think the plaster is original if it has a backing like paper or visqueen?
A plaster that old if orginial would mostly be on wood lath and not textured.
First of all if the crack appeared say this year than you must have someone experenced with plaster inspect it.
If it has metal lath behind the plaster it is newer plaster.
If someone did a repair or plastered over the orginial you have a weight problem over head?
Also a paper or visqueen behind the plaster on a ceiling may cause a moisture problem which would cause a failure over time.
If the cracks follow a line along one of the angles my guess is a structral problem or rotted wood members along the angle?
How bad are the cracks small / large?
Do they rum in a straight line or do they look like a road map?
I am a little confused Beth, you say there is a visqueen(plastic?) layer underneath the plaster?
If there are only some surface cracking how can you see how the plaster is made up?
It seems unlikely that anyone would plaster over, well, any kind of paper/visqueen but I guess you never know :(
I wrote a 'top ten' ways to repair lath and plaster on my blog a while back, just ask if you want the link.
Cheers
Ian