New Plastered Ceiling Blistered

[mishel02]

Plasterer has been, the paint/plaster has pulled the artex off the ceiling and is loose. He says the only solution is to board it and skim it again. He wants to charge me for materials (approx £80) plus £40 labour.
He said its not his fault and its the guy who originally did the artex??

 

[Chud]

He's not charging much for labour so I think he's trying to help you out here as reboarding and re-skimming is a good chunk of work - as Chappers said sometimes it just doesn't work through no fault of your own.

 

[misterhelpful]

That sounds like a fair deal. Skimming Artex normally turns out fine but obviously not on this case. I know it's a blow after already shelling out to get it skimmed but at least you will have peace of mind that the same thing won't happen again.
Maybe his low price for re-doing the job is because he realised he should have heard alarm bells when some of the surface was loose before he skimmed.
I hope it works out for you.

EDIT:
You also have to bear in mind that, had he thought the original job called for scraping everything off or re-boarding, his quote would have been higher in the first place. So, a the end of the day, you won't really be any worse off, other than the work and stress it's caused you.

 

[SJRSJR]

After getting a quote to skim my Artexed ceiling the plasterer started the job then came to me and said the Artex wasn't bonded well enough so he needed to scrape it off. He charged me £50 extra for the labour. I wondered at the time if he was just trying to up the price. Having read this I'm grateful to him!

 

[mishel02]

my ceiling made a strange loud noise today and I actually thought it was coming down. When I looked its cracked in 2 places the whole width of the room. Is there any chance it might come down? The plasterer cant come til next thursday

 

[misterhelpful]

It's unlikely to come down but the extra weight of the new plaster on the underlying substrate has a bearing on how solid it will be. You can get settlement cracks, especially in ceilings, because of movement in the floor above with people walking on it. I think it sounds like re-boarding is the best all round solution to me.
Do you know if the original ceiling is plasterboard or if it could be lath and plaster?
If it is the latter, re-boarding over would have been a good idea in the first place because those type of older ceilings can sometimes partially come down if they are not solid, and getting it done now will help hold everything in place. (I wouldn't worry too much, but it is possible.) My concern with this is that you make sure the plasterer screws the new boards up rather than nail them because, if the existing ceiling did loosen later down the line, nails wouldn't be anywhere near as strong as screws to hold everything together.
If the original is plasterboard, there is very little chance of anything caving in. If the cracks are around 4 or 8 feet apart, and are in relatively straight lines, this could suggest that joints in plasterboard have cracked, which is nothing major.

 

[sparkwright]

Some plasterers can tell straight away which artex ceilings need re-boarding, and which can be skimmed over.

The fact it was loose in the first place should have told him something.

However, though it could be argued he should have advised you better, I think he's being quite fair in charging for the materials and labour. Very fair really. Presumably the labour charge is effectively for doing the boarding.

Mistakes do happen, and he's going to put it right.

To ensure you get a good job, he should use screws rather than nails (already mentioned, no one's used nails now for almost 20 years), uses scrim tape on the joints, and removes any light fittings etc.

Be sure someone can remove the light before he starts work.

Someone mentioned earlier that your paint wasn't suitable (nothing to do with the ceiling blistering in this case), so double check that before you start.

Glad you're getting it sorted, you wouldn't have liked scraping that paint off!

 

[misterhelpful]

To ensure you get a good job, he should use screws rather than nails (already mentioned, no one's used nails now for almost 20 years)

That should be the case but I was amazed at how many builders were still using nails just 5 years ago. Even those doing council grants were using them and it was never picked up (or just blatantly overlooked) by the LABC. The number of popped nails that I had to punch flush and fill must be in the trillions!!

 

[sparkwright]

I'm amazed they used plasterboard nails for as long as they did. Those nails don't grip to wood particularly well, even nails with a jagged profile would surely have been better.

 

[mishel02]

I will make sure he uses screws. I know you have all said he is doing it cheap but its more the disruption of moving all of my furniture out onto the patio and hoping it doesn't rain. There is another thing I have noticed as well, I had a double socket on the wall and an electrician fitted another next to it before the plasterer came. He has not plastered between them and you can see the wires? Should he have?

 

[chappers]

On the plastering situation, I'm afraid it is just one of those things that can happen, through no ones fault. As I said previously sometimes it's the action of plastering that reveals the problem with what appeared to be a sound surface. Your plasterer is being pretty fair if you ask me. As for the socket how close are they together, the solution might be to remove the faceplates and then fill/plaster the gap.

 

[mishel02]

Hi all, thanks so far for your help. The plasterer text me on Wed to say he couldnt make it as his job ran over and he couldnt give me a new date and to get someone else to fix it?? Im so angry, I had emptied the room again and hes messed me around.

 

[misterhelpful]

That's depressing!
There we were giving him credit for making things right and he turns around and does that. Seems to me like he realise he messed up and now just doesn't want to do the extra work. You could go through all the hassle of small claims, especially as he has admitted what caused the problem and was supposedly going to rectify it, but I don't think it would be worth the effort involved.
I would look around for another plasterer and tell them about your experience - some will be good and make the effort to help show not all tradesmen are bad by doing you a good deal.