Plastering cracks

[kazuki]

First of all apologies if this has been covered already, ive searched most of the old posts but not found an answer.

I had a builder plaster completely from new ie, not cosmetic but strip back to brickwork a year ago.
Small cracks have appeared in various places which i think people have mentioned is called shrinkage, what I would like to know is this normal? If not did the builder do a bad job and could it have been avoided?

 

[trowelmonkey1]

cracks can happen for many reasons.

where are they?

are there any hollow sounding areas around the cracks?

did you have cracks in the same places before he re-plastered?

 

[kazuki]

No it doesnt sound hollow around the cracks, and i had all the walls replastered from scratch, as in all existing plastering was removed and stripped back to the brickwork first.

And the cracks appear in all different places in the walls and not necessarily above radiators.

 

[roy c]

If the existing float and set inside a building is stripped back to either original brick or stone work and re-done then there is a chance that any cracks that were in the original walls will come through at a later date. If the cracks were evident when the walls were knocked off (which only the plasterer may have known about..Or not) then they should have been addressed. Or if the walls were scratched and floated up and the mortar or plaster "went off" to quickly then this may also be a reason for for cracking. Shrinkage is a word that is "banded" about quite a lot and is accepted by customers (and some "tradesmen!") as the norm. I am not going to put my views on here about that. I will let others say what they think. But if it has been 12 months, unless he was a reputable tradesman I think you may have a job getting him back. If he does come back see what he says and let us all know....

 

[Richard C]

How old is the property?
Were there any cracks before?
Why was the wall stripped back?
Are the cracks vertical, horizontal or random?
Are there any cracks elsewhere in the property?
Is the wall brick or lightweight block?
Do you know what was used as a base coat, i.e. plaster or sand/cement/lime render?

Some pictures might help!

If a wall is stripped back, any underlying cracks in the mortar joints or even the bricks themselves must be repaired & metal lath reinforced before the wall is re-plastered/ rendered & skimmed, fail to make adequate repairs & they will just reappear. Correctly done, the success rate is very high but it can never be guaranteed 100% they won’t reappear especially if there is still movement. As Roy says, only the plasterer will know if there were underlying problems that were just covered up & unless you saw cracks personally & brought it to his attention, your going to have a hard job proving it; either that or the base coat was unsuitable or incorrectly applied.

Wonderful term “shrinkage”, bit like a “get out of jail free” card ; cracks can & do happen but usually for reasons that could have been avoided.