New Plaster is Cracking

Caroline44

Hi, I'm after some advice. My front room walls along with the hall, stairs and landing have just been skimmed and now painted by a local firm. Today, when the decorator came to finish off the job we noticed that the walls have started to get fine lined cracks in them. The hall stairs and landing appear to be ok, but they were plastered a couple days after the front room so they may yet appear. Now there aren't just a couple of cracks it is like crazy paving. The main chap of the company has just come to have a look and can't believe it. He says his plasterer has been plastering for 30yrs and this has never happened before. He spoke to his plasterer who is coming out to have a look tomorrow but whilst he was on the phone he asked to speak to me and said that he would fill in the cracks. However, I'm not so happy about that because surely the plaster is mixed wrong and therefore going forward I am going to have problems. I am absolutely gutted as it has taken over 3 weeks to get to this all done and we've had to stay out in a freezing cold conservatory while the work has been done. I was told it would take two weeks in total but has now gone past 3. I haven't yet paid them. I am wondering if anybody could give me an idea of what can be done. The decorator says no matter how careful the cracks are filled in you will always see some evidence of where the cracks were. He has suggested that the walls have lining paper on them and then repaint them. I may as well have just wallpapered in the first place and saved a lot of money. Any advice on what I should expect the plasterer to say tomorrow?

avantra

A. Don't pay yet
B. Ask the plasterer to redo the skimming as filling is out of the question as your decorator rightly said.
C. If he don't agree to your terms take him to small claims and pay someone else to redo it.

Don't accept half ar**se job.

Party_Animal

When you say "skimming" what has he skimmed onto? Is it plasterboard?

Caroline44

He skimmed the walls after the wallpaper had been removed.

Caroline44

avantra wrote: »

Ask the plasterer to redo the skimming as filling is out of the question as your decorator rightly said..

The plasterer said reskimming was not possible as the cracks would come thru again.

The plasterer works for the decorator and the decorator has paid him already so the plasterer won't be out of pocket. But we haven't paid the decorator yet and we won't be until this is sorted out. What I'm not sure is what I should accept as a solution.

MightyMythop

If they've been in the trade for 30 years this should not be happening. Sounds like the walls haven't been prepared properly hence the cracking.

Depending on amount of cracking it's possible that the whole area of plaster will need to be knocked off and replastered but that's for them to sort out at no charge!

Party_Animal

Caroline44 wrote: »

He skimmed the walls after the wallpaper had been removed.

Sorry, I meant are the walls solid i.e brick or block or plasterboarded?
You can tell by tapping them whether they are solid or not.

Freddie_Snowbits

Sorry, but has the plaster been applied to a old wall or is this a skim over some plasterboard.

You see that when we repossessed Freda's Place, there were fine cracks that appeared. We had used driers and left the Walls bare for four months before painting and decorating

Caroline44

They are brick - so solid then.

DVardysShadow

Did you use a drier? Freddy might be on to it.

If you did, it is bad news because you are responsible - but good news because you know what the problem is. Plaster does not dry - that is a fundamental misunderstanding of plaster - and you should not attempt to dry it.

Caroline44

No driers or any other means of heat were used to dry/cure/bake/whatever the correct term is etc it out. The decorator who was here everyday vouched that it was given the exact conditions for it to do whatever it needs to do. To my 'amateur' eye it looks like it was put on too thinly but then I know nothing about plastering.