Covering a crack with... coving? Or what?

sammyjammy

Decorators caulk and a damp cloth!

stuart45

Caulk is the quickest, but not the best. That's why when drylining is done, all the joints, junctions and internal corners are taped.

LE_Bore

Bendy, I can't remember what flexible filler I used but I definitely bought one that claimed to move. I always thought caulk dried stiff. (I think they might have made viagra from it.) Nut I am probably wrong, maybe it flexes, unlike me after an afternoon spent trying to sort the crack out along these walls. 

Sammy, Stuart and company, My fear of using tape, etc, is because that wall clearly moves. It is blasted by the sun every summer, being saaf facin', then it gets quite damp here in the autumn. I figure that the tape may end up pulling more away than just the cracked area if I have to remove it. This is why I wanted to hide it all with coving somehow. Flexible, non-gapping coving -- there's an idea you can have if you send me your prototype...

One more thing: if you just wanted to do a quick, make it look nice for a few months job, because I assume it will move again soon enough, would you advise some other way of fixing it

Thanks everyone for the ideas so far, food for thought. 

grumbler

stuart45 said:

It always works when I've done it. That's why it's done in the trade.

You were lucky then.

And cracks are a norm pretty much for everything "done in the trade".

stuart45

All walls and ceilings move as they expand and contract, so yours is no different. My daughter had her old house painted by a pro last year. The cracks were all caulked, but were back within a month. I taped them and now they are fine. Her ceiling wall junction looked very much like yours.

Eldi_Dos

@immac, depends on your papering skills but a roll of Border paper to span the two walls?

stuart45

grumbler said:

stuart45 said:

It always works when I've done it. That's why it's done in the trade.

You were lucky then.

And cracks are a norm pretty much for everything "done in the trade".

Not lucky at all. If the job is done properly it is unlikely to crack. Taping the joint makes cracking less likely. If it didn't they wouldn't bother doing it.

grumbler

stuart45 said:

grumbler said:

stuart45 said:

It always works when I've done it. That's why it's done in the trade.

You were lucky then.

And cracks are a norm pretty much for everything "done in the trade".

Not lucky at all. If the job is done properly it is unlikely to crack. Taping the joint makes cracking less likely. If it didn't they wouldn't bother doing it.

Joint filler has no flexibility at all and can't prevent sheets of platerboards moving if the studs or walls move. Joint tape just holds pieces of the filler together if it cracks, it can't prevent cracking.  Of course, it's better than nothing.

Decorators caulk is better in this respect, but only if it sticks well to plasterboard. This obviously wasn't the case with a similar product used by the OP. And caulk contracts significantly when setting. And the paint itself has to be very flexible and elastic.

stuart45

Plasterboard will always move. Without any tape it's much more likely to crack. Paper tape actually performs better than scrim, which flexes slightly.
I've done drylining jobs for over 30years, although my main trade is brickwork, and never had any problems with cracking at the joints.

grumbler

Unfortunately, people "in the trade" doing this for living, usually don't see (and some don't care) what happens  in the future, in a year or later.

ATM I'm helping a friend with decorating a 2015 house built by a big company. It's a disaster - almost every corner needs redoing.