Sort of "plaster" type smell in house

moneyistooshorttomention

When I virtually gutted this house that I bought recently, part of that was that I had every single ceiling and wall in the place replastered. To be more precise, the ceilings all got plasterboarded over and that was then skim plastered (necessary because those ceilings had anaglypta wallper and coving on them all).

Obviously there were plaster smells at the time, but these went.

This is now some months later and the house has recently started to have odd whiffs of plaster type smells in various rooms at intervals.

If it makes any difference, the outside walls of the house are those concrete block things (rather than bricks) and the house is cavity wall insulated. The floors are concrete rather than wood (all of them being covered with thick fitted carpet on top of thick underlay, apart from kitchen and bathroom). The kitchen and bathroom have reasonable thickness vinyl on them. I've noticed the smell in the lounge and kitchen and both bedrooms.

1. What is causing these intermittent smells?

2. How can I stop it?

Better_Days

Money, have a very good look around and try and identify where the smell is the strongest. You may have a leak which is making the plaster wet, hence the smell.

Owain_Moneysaver

Agreed, probably some damp somewhere. Damp plaster has a very distinctive smell.

moneyistooshorttomention

That was my first thought and I've been scouting around looking for signs of damp and putting my hand on outside walls to see if it felt at all damp and couldn't detect anything.

Hence I'm now puzzled.

Better_Days

There may be a leak above the ceiling which may not show up straight away, and it would give this smell (I know from experience!)

Have you tried shutting all the doors overnight, then in the mornings going round and locating where the smell is the strongest? Would it be possible to go up into the loft and see if there is a smell up there too?

moneyistooshorttomention

I'll try that shut doors overnight thing and see if things are any clearer.

Obviously, the downside of the fact I've had to deal with those anaglypta ceilings by fixing "fake ceilings" of plasterboard a couple of inches below them is its not possible to tell what is happening to the "real" ceilings underneath.

Wonder whether I should buy a pair of binoculars (which could come in handy for birdwatching and the like anyway) to try for a better look at my roof.

When I bought the house there was a roof leak that had started up and got worse over one room, but I had a repair done to mend that and have had all sorts of workmen heading to and from the loft since and been asking them to check for dryness there and reported that its all duly dried up fine. Latest workman was up there only a few weeks back sorting out my loft insulation better for me and duly reported it all looked dry to him.

Unfortunately, its not the sort of loft I can even physically manage to get into and the structure of it is such that I wouldn't care to try it - no boarding up there, but there are notices warning that walking around up there isn't a good idea:(.

Think I might get out my little shortie stepladder and start going round feeling ceilings just in case...

EDIT; Am having my senses confused at the moment, because of a horrible metallic taste that has started up in my mouth today (probably courtesy of a visit to dentist yesterday?) and guess its best to wait for that to go away and then I can tell better whats what.

Better_Days

Unfortunately a little water goes a long way.

We've had an intermittent leak in our roof, DH has been up there when it is leaking and it doesn't seem to be a great deal of water but it has gone down the chimney, along the rafters and then down into the main bedroom. We only found this after the lining paper was taken off the wall to decorate. There was no smell at all (and I've got a very good sense of smell - a side effect of my illness). It appears to have been a long-standing issue which had previously been bodged.

Now waiting for builder to come and fix the roof (again). We've had one fix round the chimney which we thought was the problem, but it still leaks. Got the builder to go up when it was raining and he found the problem seems to be with the ridge tiles and the roofing felt laid incorrectly. Because of the way water travels it might not always be immediately apparent where on the roof there is a leak. And unless you know exactly where to look the loft seems dry.

moneyistooshorttomention

I know what you mean re water can spread. The source of the leak was found before and I've specifically told workmen inspecting the loft since where it was coming through and my loft insulation workman would have gone right across the loft (ie spotted it if it had reoccurred).

In hindsight what I thought was a small dried-up old stain on a ceiling at the time I bought the house turned out to be a leak that had already started in vendors' time, but he hadn't bothered to get it sorted out:mad: and it then went ballistic and whoops! But that does seem to be all properly sorted out now and it was some months after that that I had that fake ceiling put up in that room during the replastering.

Hope your problem is all sorted now.

I'll bring in a friend and have them wonder round my place doing the sniff test.

Davesnave

Better_Days wrote: »

There may be a leak above the ceiling which may not show up straight away, and it would give this smell (I know from experience!)

It could even come from pipework, rather than the roof, and over a false ceiling it might take some time to show.

We had a false ceiling in our kitchen, past tense.

While we had much of the roof off, small amounts of rain got to the upper level, but didn't penetrate to the one below. In the bedroom next door with a single ceiling, our less successful efforts to keep rain out were very apparent!