Lath and Plaster Ceiling Cracks

[tomrobo728]

Hi there,

I am hoping to fix the cracks in a lath and plaster ceiling and have been getting varied advice online. I believe the loft was previously overloaded and so the cracks have been formed due to excessive deflection of the roof joists. They have been poorly filled in by a previous owner and have cracked again. The loft has been emptied so I believe the main issue has been solved, although I have not yet seen the joists to inspect for damage.

Options I have seen floating around online:

- Fully remove lath and plaster and replace with new plaster board fixed into joists
- Locally break out around cracks and reskim
- Overboard to avoid having to remove the lath and plaster

Does anyone have any experience in fixing cracks similar to these? Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[Jurassicspark]

You can get the cracks repaired but likely they will appear again.

Over boarding it will with plasterboard will be a better option.

However, If it was me, I would remove that old plaster rather than repairing it.

Empty the room and put a doormat outside the door, tape up the door, take rubble bags, a broom and shovel, and a canister vacuum in there.

Carefully remove the old laths. This may be a complicated job for the average DIYer as it's not a game of ripping everything out at once.

You can keep the cornice. If you want to carefully remove the laths and leave a 5 inch distance. between the coving, whej your finished removing everything then you can proceed to remove the rest of the laths carefully till the coving.

Wear a dust mask and goggles, do not open the door again until you have swept up, vacuumed, and taken off your filthy hat and mask.

Then replace it with plasterboard.

 

[tomrobo728]

Thank you for that advice! Seems to make a lot of sense to me.

It does feel just filling the cracks wouldn't solve the issue well enough.

I've heard removing lath and plaster can be a very messy job but I will be redecorating that room anyway so it makes sene to do it properly.

Would there be a risk of the rest of the ceiling at that level (in the neighbouring room for example) being damaged if I remove it all in this room?

 

[Jurassicspark]

Would there be a risk of the rest of the ceiling at that level (in the neighbouring room for example) being damaged if I remove it all in this room?

No, if you do the job properly.

A much simpler job will be to overboard it. For one of my rooms, I done it this way to save time and it was perfect.

 

[RandomGrinch]

All I would add to @Jurassicspark's comments - if you are taking the lath and plaster down, remove all the old insulation from the loft first, and thoroughly go over the loft with the canister vac - it makes for a far less messy experience.
There may be laths going into an adjoining room - in my place it appears as if the partition wall was put up after the ceiling laths were in place - so be careful ripping out laths near the room boundary.

Personally, I went for over-boarding in my downstairs rooms; I could keep the original mouldings in place and the floor joists were beefy enough to take a bit of extra load.
My ceiling joists upstairs were slim and bowed, re-doing the ceiling from scratch allowed me to batten out the ceiling level, and didn't add too much additional weight to the joists.

 

[sparkwright]

Personally, I would keep the old ceiling, and fill the cracks.

If you overboard, you will lose some of the detail on the coving.

A new boarded and skimmed ceiling could crack along the joins.

Cracks in old ceilings are character.

Cracks in new ceilings are annoying.