Lath and plaster ceiling repair

Early Victorian house. A section of a lath and plaster porch ceiling has collapsed due to water ingress. The source of the leak was identified and dealt with last year, but large cracks appeared in the ceiling a few months ago, and sagging, and finally the collapse of an area about 3'x2'. (The porch itself is about 6'x5'.) Clearly the nibs had failed, and indeed in the worst section, the laths themselves. I suspect the ceiling had been subject to the water ingress for a long time before the leak had become apparent (when water dripped through the corner of the ceiling after a particularly heavy deluge - problem being a combination of a failed down pipe and a blocked gully).

I'd quite like to repair the hole with new laths and then plaster, rather than plasterboard.

What would be the best undercoat plaster to use? I have a quantity of browning left over from a previous project, and was wondering if this would do? Or would bonding be better?

 

so you want to use vintage methods with modern materials......
good luck.

 

jso, good evening.

What I instruct in Insurance claims is to remove the entire old L/P and replace with plasterboard and skim. Once worked on some old L/P ceilings can deteriorate

OK yes in Grade A listed properties I have seen specialists replace like for like materials, especially wall plasters but drying times are out of sight??

Even in the upgrade, make overs of [say] a court or similar, yes i have worked in several of them, plasterboard is used extensively.

Am very, very much with the sentiments expressed above by "bennymultifinish"

Ken.

 

Well, that gets to the heart of the question! So, not possible, or not advisable, then?

 

why bother when they invented plasterboard?

 

OK. Thanks. It's a Grade 2 Listed building, although it's had some bad and some sad things done to it (mostly before it was listed) - including to some other ceilings. But I guess if I use plasterboard, no-one but me would know that the porch ceiling is no longer original...

 

Partly out of interest; partly to preserve a little bit of the original (although I take your point that unless I use heritage materials, it wouldn't be a conservation repair anyway...)