Repair plaster, patch with sheetrock, or sheetrock the whole ceiling?

Dreamboat. Buy that guy a milkshake.

: - )

I'm glad there was no injury and hope that Potezny is one of the contractors making time to stop by. He has done some amazing jobs on lathe ceilings with a minimum of dust. He worked on a number of Victorian ceilings on Second Street in South Orange and I saw a kitchen ceiling he recently did on Prospect Street where other contractors thought the entire ceiling had to be replaced. Potezny disagreed and he turned out to be correct.

It is a bedroom, for goodness' sake! Forget about fixing the plaster and go with a full, fresh sheetrock ceiling. If that large a section of plaster wasn't firmly attached to the lathe, who knows the state of the balance of the ceiling.

I don't think there is any suggestion to do it on the cheap as much as having it repaired by someone who has the skill and experience to do it correctly which I believe Jasper is trying to accomplish.

Ken Siegel from Prism Painting and Home Repair came this morning to look at it. He said that there is a weak point at the lath seam where there had been an old tape repair, and that it appears that further sections of the ceiling are separating from the lath.

His recommendation is to cover the whole ceiling with 3/8" sheetrock, but he works primarily alone and felt that this kind of ceiling job would be more than he can handle, so he suggested calling Wilber, which is who I have coming next. I'm guessing they will also recommend sheetrock over plaster repair.

I'm not sure what repairing the plaster would entail, as more of the ceiling is likely to fail in due time. I'd prefer not to have to pull out more of it to avoid the (lead) dust.

Had this happen once, homeowners helped with the charges, but for the life of me, can't remember wh did the repairs

Sheetrocking over lathe and plaster is a good way to go so long as the drywall screws are driven into the joists and not just lathe.

Wilber's guy recommended removing the plaster, as its continuing failure may eventually cause bulging in the sheetrock if you just sheetrock over it, and then screw the sheetrock into the lath and joists. I liked the guy who came and as long as the estimate seems reasonable, will probably just go with it, as I want this done so my son can get back into his room, which has become his haven ever since I got him that kitchen table desk and comfy office chair on the swap.

seaweed said:
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...

Oh, seaweed, I just noticed your comment about the lath. It's not cracked, but there is a straight seam there where a whole bunch of pieces all end at the same point rather than in a staggered fashion. That seems a faulty design to me, and may have been the cause of the issue, as that's exactly where the taped repair was from years ago.

We had this happen a few years ago in our dining room - insurance (Chubb) sent out a team the day the piece fell to do clean up. Their estimator gave a huge estimate for repair as well as redoing the floors (!!) throughout the entire ground floor so they would match. We ended up using Wilbur if I remember correctly, and had them sheetrock the entire ceiling. The whole thing ended up costing about 1/5 of the insurance estimate. We went to Italy that summer.

eliz said:
We had this happen a few years ago in our dining room - insurance (Chubb) sent out a team the day the piece fell to do clean up. Their estimator gave a huge estimate for repair as well as redoing the floors (!!) throughout the entire ground floor so they would match. We ended up using Wilbur if I remember correctly, and had them sheetrock the entire ceiling. The whole thing ended up costing about 1/5 of the insurance estimate. We went to Italy that summer.

Wow. We also have Chubb, for which we pay a hefty premium.

Glad all are safe and the visit from Wilber's went well.

I have to wonder: Will it take a ceiling collapse before we see our son's floor again?

DaveSchmidt said:
Glad all are safe and the visit from Wilber's went well.
I have to wonder: Will it take a ceiling collapse before we see our son's floor again?

Hopefully none of your ceilings collapse, DS, but to boy jasper's credit, he's been keeping his room very tidy of late and it made a huge difference in the cleanup effort. Even he agreed it was a good thing.

I'm shocked they would line up the seam in the lath that way... like you, I think it's a terrible design with a built-in point for future failure. I also agree 100% with the guy who said it should be demolished completely and replaced with sheetrock.

Glad everyone is OK. Kudos to BoyJasper!

If the plaster is sagging in other rooms, I would guess a similar lath arrangement was used elsewhere, sad to say. So keep a very close eye on your ceilings!