Hairline crack in newly plastered ceiling

AliJE

We've recently had some major building work done on our house. As part of this our kitchen ceiling has been overboarded and plastered. This was done in late August and decorated at the start of November. A couple of days ago we noticed a hairline crack has appeared that goes all the way right across the kitchen ceiling. Not life and death but a bit irritating as it's been freshly decorated. We spoke to the decorator who advised us to leave it for now to see whether it gets worse. He says he could fill it with flexible filler but realistically would probably have to repaint the whole ceiling and it could still reappear. My question is whether this is normal and just one of those things or whether the builder/plasterer could/should have done something to prevent. Any advice appreciated. Thanks!

LEJC

In my experience it is quite normal and happens with slight movement....as the plasterer says you could fill it but it may reappear.

its not an uncommon occurrence...and over time you will either get used to it or fill and repaint.

TheCyclingProgrammer

Yes, quite normal I think. We had loads of re-plastering done and had a number of hairline cracks. I agree with your decorator, leave it for now - maybe wait a whole year. Then look at filling them. It depends a lot on your choice of paint and colour how well it touches up. If you have paint that touches up invisibly then you could rake out, fill and touch up the paint. You might be better off leaving it though.

Good news is as its on the ceiling, which is usually painted with contract matt, this should touch up without being visible at all.

You might also find some cracks open up and close as the seasons change. We had some fine cracks on our stairwell and landing. The filler I've got (Touprets) dried to a very close match as the actual paint so what I did was mix up some filler and just rub it into the crack and then wiped off the excess. You honestly couldn't see the repair...until the weather changed and the cracks started close up and ended up creating a ridge where the filler was squeezed out!

Ectophile

The nice thing about brilliant white matt emulsion is that it's always the same colour. You can re-paint bits of the ceiling and hardly notice that it's been done.

Chanes

I know some decorators put lining paper over plaster and paint that.

sk240

A good option is the flexible ceiling peint from wickes, which in my experiance can cover some fairly large cracks with ease.

FreeBear

<cough> Artex will cover small cracks, as will any latex based paint.

That said, I'd be pretty annoyed if cracks started to appear on a newly boarded/plastered ceiling. One would hope that the joints between the boards were properly filled and a scrim tape applied before plastering - This should have prevented any cracking but....

If the OP has a room above and the joists are "bouncy", then cracks along the plasterboard joints may well be inevitable.