hairline cracks in newly (one week ago!) plastered walls

[Gizmo2013]

Around a week and a half ago we had our hallway plastered. The plastered finished all the paiting today however now the paint has started to dry in the corners I have noticed that a hairline crack is running down the length of the each corner of the walls.

Any ideas why this is and how to cover it up/fix it?

This is all rather annoying as I was hoping to have a perfect hallway after all the money I spent and the saving up we had to do to get it done!

In case you need to know, he didn't use plaster board but took off the wallpaper, which revealed some shoddy very old plaster, and plastered over that. When dried he used bonding paint (I think it was called), and finished with Dulux Once paint.

Thanks

 

[Gizmo2013]

Anyone?

 

[joe-90]

It sounds to me like a quick skim over lime render. The likely cost should have been around the £350 mark.

Do any of the walls sound hollow when you tap them?

The cracks are shrinkage cracks. He should have taped the corners being as the original finish was in poor condition.

The best thing is simply to fill the cracks with a lightweight filler and eventually they will stop shrinking.

 

[Gizmo2013]

It actually cost us £850 but that was to remove all of the old wallpaper, paint and supply the materials. It is quite a large surface area too as goes all the way up to the roof as we have a skylight in the hallway. Hope i havn't been robbed as we have him lined up to do the other rooms!

Any idea what sort of filler to use? Do I need to make the cracks wider and then just paint over when dry?

Thanks

 

[Gizmo2013]

Oh, and no. The walls are not hollow however we do have a couple of hollow sounding walls which separate the bedrooms upstairs as they are not in the original layout due ot the bathroom being moved upstairs, way before we bought the house.

Should that change anything when plastering our upstairs?

 

[joe-90]

No the upstairs walls are fine. If he's coming back then tell him to sort it. £850 is a bit pricey as the materials are dirt cheap.

If you don't get him back use an ultra-lightweight filler like Red Devil or Wickes.

 

[Gizmo2013]

Great, sounds simple enough

Thanks alot for your help.

 

[Pigeon85]

Just incase your unsure about how to fill a crack may sound stupid but a very common mistake people make, first open the crack a little more then dust down, fill then sand and then fill again and sand