Repair plaster, patch with sheetrock, or sheetrock the whole ceiling?
Patching plaster is labor intensive. My wife and I discovered we enjoy doing it. If you don't enjoy doing it yourself, don't pay anyone to do it, as it will cost too much. Either do a sheetrock patch or a complete sheetrock replacement.
How much of the ceiling requires repair? For me a consideration would be what else do you need to do in the room (or room above) -- plumbing, electrical, etc.
In a previous house, started by tearing down parts of ceiling that had to come down. Then started putting in new electrical. It became clear, much more efficient to tear it all down.
We had two rooms in our house with plaster ceilings that were buckling. Our handyman left the plaster in place and simply used 1/4" sheetrock to just cover everything. We had picture-frame moldings around the top so that there was room for the sheetrock to slip in and look seamless around the edges. We're very happy with the results.
Sorry, I resized and re-uploaded the pictures so they show up.
The part that needs fixing is about 20% of the ceiling. The moulding goes right to the edge of the ceiling, so if they wanted to cover the whole ceiling with sheetrock, I think they'd need to remove the moulding and reposition it slightly lower.
It looks like the cracks have room to travel further. I would do a partial or full sheetrock repair.
Another vote for sheetrock. Twenty per cent is enough to justify doing the whole thing.
We haven't done it for the majority of our plastered ceilings, but are more than satisfied with the results on the two rooms where it was definitely needed. An added bonus, to me, when we redid the dining room ceiling, was replacing the picture molding with crown molding.
It may already be sheetrock, the piece has a square corner at the cracks, and what looks like tape at the seams, which is usually how two pieces of sheetrock which meet are finished. Paper tape and joint compound.
Kurt
ETA: whatever it is, it looks like it has been repaired once already
When others falter, call the Master of Sheetrock and Ceilings: Myron Potezny 973-462-6995
I had a ceiling replastered and paid a fortune. Wouldn't do it again, way too expensive as it's a high-level skill and not a lot of people do it.
I like the sheet rock cover technique since it's more permanent. when I patch an area that's buckling, a year or 2 later another spot does the same thing. my theory is that whatever makes one spot fail is affecting the whole ceiling, be it age or something else. Water damage is the exception since it's localized.
good luck with the "vintage" house!
Be very careful. If it's plaster, it looks like the keys that hold the plaster to the lath have failed, and that much plaster is very heavy and dangerous when it falls. Which it may do soon, bringing down the rest of the ceiling.
When this happened to me I had painters pull the plaster down, then sheetrock and replace the molding. I was afraid it wouldn't look authentic, but once they painted it was very hard to tell.
Thanks, everyone, for the input. My biggest concern is that it will fall before I get someone in to fix it, so time is of the essence. I'm going to make a couple of calls today and will report back on findings, decisions, and progress.
Well, the good news is that I have two people coming to look at it tomorrow. The bad news is that it just fell down.
Luckily my son heard it start to pull away, and ran out of the room with his laptop just in time. Unfortunately, I can already feel the dust in my lungs from running up there to see if he was okay. We closed the door to his room to let the dust settle and vacuumed up what flew out into the hallway.
If I put on a dust mask, is it safe to go in there and vacuum up the mess so he can at least retrieve his homework and clothing? I may have him sleep in the guest room...
Yes its safe enough. The question is why did it fall? If it is wet, find and fix the leak before replacing the ceiling.
Concerning drywall over plaster -- A previous owner did that in several rooms in my house, but the weight of the failing plaster is causing the drywall to sag. In one room it got scary enough that I had to have everything torn out and replaced with new drywall. I'll have to do the other room eventually.
khkiley said:
It may already be sheetrock, the piece has a square corner at the cracks, and what looks like tape at the seams, which is usually how two pieces of sheetrock which meet are finished. Paper tape and joint compound.
Kurt
ETA: whatever it is, it looks like it has been repaired once already
+1
Definitely is sheetrocked. This would mean a prior repair. My greatest concern would be WHY its failing again. Also, I don't think it's best to add yet another layer of 'rock. Ithink it would be toooo heavy when added to a prior layer.
So to return to your orig question- I'd have that section removed to assess the hidden problems. Still most likely I'd take it all down and go new.
Good to hear that your son left the room so quickly and avoided any injury. Plaster can be heavy and dangerous when it falls. Hubster sustained a concussion when plaster fell on his head.
Dust mask is fine. You will likely need more than a vacuum since there will be chunks of plaster you will need to pick up by hand. There will probably be some plaster pieces dangling from the ceiling. Be careful with them--if there are still parts of the ceiling that are loose you don't want to pull down more of the plaster onto your head (see last sentence of the previous paragraph). Since you have folks coming to give you estimates tomorrow, they should be able to gauge if the rest of room's ceiling is secured safely.
Best to let your son sleep in the guest room.
Jasper,
I've cross posted on both threads. This is frightening (now) but not catastrophic. Check with your insurance about coverage and repairs. They may have rules that you shouldn't bypass in your concern to get it fixed quickly. Our ins wanted their own agents to assess the damage, which in our case was major($90k).
They may also have their own preferred repair companies. This will relieve you of getting someone in right away. Of course it may mean a few days delay. That delay may be a blessing in disguise.
Please keep us informed.
SO- SO- HAPPY NO INJURIES.
So glad that BoyJasper is okay. Try Wilber's for plaster repair/sheetrock. See if he can come by himself and look at it. He did a very good assessment for us and they did a wonderful repair job on our plaster ceiling.
Thanks, everyone, for your help/input. We put on our masks, got a box of black garbage bags, picked up the big chunks, shop-vac'ed the little chunks, and now my son is regular vacuuming the fine dust. What a mess!
It gives me a new level of empathy for earthquake/disaster victims. This was nowhere near that, of course, but just the amount of dust and rubble from one patch of ceiling gives you a sense of the orders of magnitude worse wreckage that others have to deal with after a true disaster.
Thankfully there was no major damage - some scratches on the floor and furniture, but amazingly nothing broken. I took some pictures before we started cleaning and wondered if this was worth an insurance claim, but I'll see what the estimators think tomorrow.
And if you're wondering why Mr. Jasper isn't helping, he's out of town. We brought the bags down and put them in the garage for now.
The ceiling has just one or two very small pieces that are still loose, but they don't look like they'll fall, and I'd rather not pull on them and risk bringing down more detritus than I bargained for. There is no evidence of any water damage that I can see. Everything was bone dry, and the lath is still intact and looks dry. But I'll have the estimators check out the whole thing and see what's best.
I want to do this right so we don't have to face a secondary problem down the road. Sadly, the hallway ceiling is also starting to buckle, so I'll have them assess that as well.
Thanks, dg. I called Wilber and one other person. I'm pretty sure it's not Wilber who will be coming - they had to "squeeze me in" when I indicated how desperate the situation is (this, of course, was before the ceiling actually fell down) - but I'll see what they both have to say and go from there.
Just wanted to say sorry that you're dealing with this mess, and glad jasperson is OK. (And his laptop!)
Thanks, j_r. He's a super kid and helped me clean up for a couple of hours. Here's the result:
ouch ... so sorry this happened to you, but glad your son was smart to run for it before the ceiling came down ... this happening is a big fear of mine ... my entire first floor living area has tons of bulges and small cracks throughout the ceiling that stress me out whenever I look up, especially having a phobia of dust and dirt.... I hope you find a good contractor to help you out!!
ps - interestingly looking at your photo, it looks like the lath was cracked -- I wonder if that caused the plaster under it to follow that crack...
What would you do, and who would you call? DLO and Olger Fallas have already failed us, so recommend somebody else.