Damage to bedroom ceiling plaster during loft conversion - reasonable expectations for repair?

DRP

I would appreciate any comments on this situation, to gauge expectations.... thanks

tl;dr - some damage caused to 2x bedroom ceilings during loft conversion, how much work should the builders do to repair?

Situation: We have an ongoing loft conversion, all going well. Plasterers are due in next week for the new loft rooms.
Existing bedroom ceilings have artex, in essentially perfect condition pre-loft work. 

• Master bedroom: Somehow one of the existing ceiling joists has been pushed down from above by a few mm, leaving a long impression of the timber in the ceiling (800mm x 40mm ish), and splitting through the plaster at the middle point of the span. Additionally, during the worst of the rainstorms a month or so back with the roof off, rain came through the ceiling leaving a fair bit of bubbling/damp damage in one corner of the ceiling.
• Box bedroom: Section of artex/plaster approx 300mmx600mm in the ceiling centre fell, exposing the lathes. This happened following something/someone being dropped in the loft (I know this as i was sat under it at the time).

I am yet to discuss with 'HQ' but the on-site team say they would normally patch up and skim over the damage. This obviously wouldn't match our artex. Nothing in the contract regarding damage, it only states that  settlement cracks are not included in quote (fair enough).

From our point of view we don't really want the artex anyway, so would prefer the whole ceiling in both bedrooms to be overboarded/skimmed or whatever is appropriate to achieve a stable smooth finish. |Although this would be considered 'betterment', until the ceilings were damaged, this wasn't a job that needed urgently doing.

If we ask the sub-contracted plasterers to quote for skimming both bedrooms, is it out of order to expect the loft company to contribute? 50/50?

Bendy_House

On the basis that the plasterers would probably prefer to over-skim the Artex rather than try and patch/match the existing texture, I'd hope there would be room for a friendly and mutually-beneficial discussion there.

I don't see any need to overboard the ceiling first; provided the Artex is secure, then usually a coat of a bonding/keying agent (eg BlueGrit) would get the surface ready for a decorative skim.

I think all you can do is ask, and just put it in a positive way as you've suggested above (but not from a pov of 'expectation'); "Rather than try and patch the Artex, which I suspect will be tricky, could I perhaps contribute to a full smooth skim over the whole ceiling...?"

I wouldn't try and use the actual damage caused as a means of pushing your 'case' - such things are almost inevitable during an open-roof loft conversion, and they have made it clear they will sort it - as I'm sure they will.

We had a labourer come half-way through our sitting room ceiling during breakfast time. It was the funniest thing :-)

TELLIT01

What would be concerning me is that the joists flexed enough to split the ceiling.  Unless work was done to strengthen the joists that is likely to happen again.

DRP

TELLIT01 said:

What would be concerning me is that the joists flexed enough to split the ceiling.  Unless work was done to strengthen the joists that is likely to happen again.

Thanks, I did think about this too! As a whole new set of much deeper floor joists have been installed off steels, as i understand it the problem joist is redundant structurally. The 'patching' plan was to cut out the area , push the joist up by a few mm and secure it, then skim it up. 

DRP

Bendy_House said:

On the basis that the plasterers would probably prefer to over-skim the Artex rather than try and patch/match the existing texture, I'd hope there would be room for a friendly and mutually-beneficial discussion there.

I don't see any need to overboard the ceiling first; provided the Artex is secure, then usually a coat of a bonding/keying agent (eg BlueGrit) would get the surface ready for a decorative skim.

I think all you can do is ask, and just put it in a positive way as you've suggested above (but not from a pov of 'expectation'); "Rather than try and patch the Artex, which I suspect will be tricky, could I perhaps contribute to a full smooth skim over the whole ceiling...?"

I wouldn't try and use the actual damage caused as a means of pushing your 'case' - such things are almost inevitable during an open-roof loft conversion, and they have made it clear they will sort it - as I'm sure they will.

We had a labourer come half-way through our sitting room ceiling during breakfast time. It was the funniest thing :-)

Thanks B-H, that's a good suggestion on how to approach the conversation.

Yes, I agree this just hopefully just needs a chat through, we won't be stamping our feet

Section62

DRP said:

Existing bedroom ceilings have artex, in essentially perfect condition pre-loft work.

Bendy_House said:

I think all you can do is ask, and just put it in a positive way as you've suggested above (but not from a pov of 'expectation'); "Rather than try and patch the Artex, which I suspect will be tricky, could I perhaps contribute to a full smooth skim over the whole ceiling...?"

I wouldn't try and use the actual damage caused as a means of pushing your 'case' - such things are almost inevitable during an open-roof loft conversion, and they have made it clear they will sort it - as I'm sure they will.

What was dropped to cause a 300mmx600mm section of plaster to fall down, without bringing the laths down as well?

To me it would imply that the ceiling was in a far from perfect condition with the plaster and/or laths holding up more by luck than anything else.

As the contractor I'd be resistant to skimming over the whole ceiling as that may well bring down more of the plaster - which I'd expect you to also blame me for and want me to fix out of my own pocket.

The contractor should have had an honest conversation with you at the start of the project and explained that damage to the ceilings was a possibility.  With agreement from the outset what repair work would be included and what might be extra over.

If you know that at some point you intended to get rid of the artex/replace the ceilings then why is it 'urgent' to do more than a patch repair now?  If you were willing to live with the artex because you didn't want to pay for the ceilings to be done properly now, then it is a bit tenuous to suggest that the damage done during the loft conversion justifies betterment amounting to 50% of the cost of what could be full replacement of the ceilings.

Also, the way you handle this should depend on the state the rest of the project is currently in.  If the roof is not yet fully weather proof then personally (in terms of complaint/holding them liable) I'd bite my tongue until that at least had been sorted.

Otherwise, in broad principles, the approach Bendy_House puts forward of mutually-beneficial discussion makes sense - you should be willing to extend the scope of the project to redoing the ceilings properly, in exchange for the contractor to give you a good price because they will need to do some repairs anyway and have materials and workers on site already.

The only remaining question is whether the artex contains asbestos, and how that should be dealt with.

Doozergirl

No ceiling that is based on lath is going to be in 'essentially perfect condition' and even when you try to avoid rain in this country, you can't.  

You never know what you're going to encounter up there and some damage to the ceiling is a reasonable expectation, especially in an old house.  It's great if it isn't damaged.   If that original joist was rotten at one end for example, and someone walked on it and it snapped, you're lucky you didn't end up with a builder in your bedroom, let alone an impression of the timber.  

This is a contingency spend, IMO.  There is major structural work happening on that actual piece of the structure, which includes what is fragile plasterwork underneath.  This isn't avoidable damage by the builder, this is part and parcel of major building work in a precarious part of an old house.  

Old houses gonna be old.  

 

On the basis that you 'don't really want the artex anyway' a patch up is arguably adequate until you decide to do it properly.  Expecting smooth ceilings at the expense of the builder will look like outright manipulation to them.  

DRP

Section62 said:

If you know that at some point you intended to get rid of the artex/replace the ceilings then why is it 'urgent' to do more than a patch repair now?  If you were willing to live with the artex because you didn't want to pay for the ceilings to be done properly now, then it is a bit tenuous to suggest that the damage done during the loft conversion justifies betterment amounting to 50% of the cost of what could be full replacement of the ceilings.

Because before the incidents that caused the damage we had ceilings 'apparently' (more accurate description than 'essentially'?) in perfect condition, without big holes, splits and damp damage. Replacing the artex could have waited years, but now that they are in bits it moves up the renovation priority list a fair bit

I would agree that if overboarding to stabilise the ceiling is necessary, the onus on paying for it shifts much more to us. 

alleycat`

I'd agree with bendy_house.

Don't take the pee but approach it an open minded way in regards to somethings happened, you're amenable to having the entire artex over skimmed and if you can come a mutual agreement about it.

We also suffered an "apprentice" making an appearance through the youngest childs bedroom ceiling..

DRP

Doozergirl said:

No ceiling that is based on lath is going to be in 'essentially perfect condition' and even when you try to avoid rain in this country, you can't.  

You never know what you're going to encounter up there and some damage to the ceiling is a reasonable expectation, especially in an old house.  It's great if it isn't damaged.   If that original joist was rotten at one end for example, and someone walked on it and it snapped, you're lucky you didn't end up with a builder in your bedroom, let alone an impression of the timber.  

This is a contingency spend, IMO.  There is major structural work happening on that actual piece of the structure, which includes what is fragile plasterwork underneath.  This isn't avoidable damage by the builder, this is part and parcel of major building work in a precarious part of an old house.  

Old houses gonna be old.  

 

On the basis that you 'don't really want the artex anyway' a patch up is arguably adequate until you decide to do it properly.  Expecting smooth ceilings at the expense of the builder will look like outright manipulation to them.  

If the ceilings were already smooth and suffered similar damage, then the builders would have fully rectified it by patching and skimming. The situation is a bit more complicated because they can't return an artex ceiling to the state it was in,  hence the thread.

Getting them to renovate my ceilings solely at their expense wasn't really my expectation,.

Bendy_House

"Section of artex/plaster approx 300mmx600mm in the ceiling centre fell, exposing the lathes..."

Oops - I completely missed that bit in the OP. The integrity of the whole P&L ceiling would need to be confirmed before remotely considering an over-skim. Or over-boarding might well be required first, if the existing ceilings are not to be taken down.

I wonder if the 'dropped' joist was perhaps used to take a temporary prop during the construction, causing it to flex more than it would ever do in normal use. But is now 'ok'?