Crack on bathroom ceiling

JohnB47

If you look carefully, the crack goes down the image and then turns left. There is a general shaded rectangle bordered on two sides by the crack. This suggests a rectangle of ceiling standing slightly proud of the rest. Perhaps an old repair? 

If so, maybe a change of moisture level has made the repaired area move differently to the area around it, causing the crack to appear.

Or maybe it's just a trick of the light.

Either way it doesn't look serious to me, unless there's a chance that some water has got in above that ceiling.

What's above there?

ThisIsWeird

It looks very minor as folk say.

After monitoring it to see it doesn't become worse, what I would do is to repeatedly brush some slightly-diluted PVA across it, from the low side to the high so the PVA builds up on the step and has a better chance of being capillary'd in. Keep the crack wet with PVA until no more gets drawn in, and then wipe away all the excess PVA from the surface using a damp cloth. Once dry, repeat the process with emulsion paint - 'filling' that wee step with just paint will likely be enough.

housebuyer143

OrbitHeadache said:

How do I go about fixing this?

I wouldn't be concerned. A lot of my ceilings look like this after my son has stomped around like an elephant and slammed the doors. 
I literally went around filling all the cracks recently and there were a lot! One ran the entire length of the hallway ceiling. 

OrbitHeadache

Hi everyone thanks for all the responses.

It is spreading a bit now , if you look at the pic below top right the crack is increasing. So I will go and buy something to fill it?

When I touch the cracks it looks like the area of paint effected by the cracks is going to come off, if that makes sense?

stuart45

It's probably moisture getting on and causing it to blister, especially as it's in the bathroom.

Norman_Castle

The ceiling could be boarded with smaller pieces of plasterboard which are showing as the 90 degree crack. Is there a loft above with a minor leak.

Is your username based on that ceiling?

OrbitHeadache

Norman_Castle said:

The ceiling could be boarded with smaller pieces of plasterboard which are showing as the 90 degree crack. Is there a loft above with a minor leak.

Is your username based on that ceiling?

No loft above.

Nope it's not.

ThisIsWeird

If it's caused by water from above, it surely would be obvious by now.

I suspect it's more like what Stuart and Norman are saying - a crack that was almost certainly 'bound' to occur at some point, exacerbated by steam condensing on it during this colder weather.

I'd l;eave it a couple more weeks for monitoring, just in case. Then PVA - get it right in there as much as possible, gently easing it behind any raised paint/artex/paper edges too, gently pressing (slide your fingertips over it, not lift straight off, 'cos this would pull the edges away again) this down with your fingertips, and wiping away the excess.

PVAing it might not fully work to bond the crack's sides together, but not using it is very likely, ime, to have these cracks reappear sooner rather than later.

OrbitHeadache

So nearly a 2 years later I left it after applying crack filler.

Now it's gone bad, what do I do?

The ceiling is crumbling I think?

FreeBear

The most recent image shows how the ceiling was put up - Plasterboard fixed with nails, and given a quick skim (without any scrim tape by the looks of it). Some of the nails have "popped" as evidenced by the small step along one of the cracks.

Using screws to secure the plasterboard in place will hopefully limit further cracking. But it is going to be a bit of a crap shoot to go in to solid wood if you don't know where the joists are exactly. So a long term solution is to take the whole ceiling down and do a "proper job". Messy, and can get expensive if you are DIY challenged.