More ceiling questions...

[kriswatson]

Hi, I have some problems with a ceiling. I had some damage when my son let the bath overflow! this caused a crack and an area of skim to go live. When I came to sort it out, I found that with very little effort I was able to remove all the skim from the whole cieling, leaving the plasterboard clean! First question, why hadn't the plaster adhered to the plasterboard? I had the ceiling replaced when we moved in, 20yrs ago. It has always cracked along the joins in the plasterboard. When I removed the skim I found that the board is moving on its nails, which have punctured the card surface of the board. There are no noggins in between the joists supporting the joins. Is this usual? Thanks for your time.

[John Rumm]

By live do you mean "lose" or "240V" ?

If the joins to which you refer are just the short spans that run perpendicular to the joists, then it is not unusual to have no noggins there since you are only talking about 40cm of unsupported board edge typically. If however you are saying that whoever replaced the ceiling allowed a whole board to overlap a joist, and meet the next one in the middle of a gap then that is a bodge!

Nails are not ideal for fixing boards to the ceiling IMHO. The proper drywall screws make a much better job and are less likely to work lose. You could add these now to fix the whole thing in place. Screw every

40cm or so along each joist.

The joints between all the boards ought to be scrim taped as well before they are re plastered - that ought to stop the cracks appearing at the joints so easily.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Or in fact 'loose' ?

[John Rumm]

that as well ;-)