Holes in my ceiling

FlaatusGoat

I'll soon be having my ceiling plastered over but there's a few existing holes where lights have been installed or walls ripped down. How can I tidy this up so it's adequate for re plastering over?

nofoollikeold

1. Advise the plasterer and leave it to him / her.
2. Get a small piece of plasterboard and then:
2.1 Cut into strips longer than hole diameter and about half diameter wide.  Drill small hole in centre of strip.  Pass string through hole and not on inside.  
2.2 "Butter" strips with Polyfilla (or similar), one at a time, and slide into hole.  Butter and slide another next to it and use strings to pull over and cover hole.  Pull string down to squish polyfilla.  Leave to dry.
2.3 Either cut pieces of plasterboard or just use Polyfilla and fill / smooth to bring patch more or less level with existing ceiling.
3. Could use plywood for the strips.
4. Try and clean loose dust from rafter side of original ceiling where strips are going, and dampen before fixing.

Spinybif

We had exactly the same situation when we updated kitchen.  Replaced old R80 spots with modern LEDs. Plasterer cut out squares of plaster board and replaced. For us he put alignment lines so new holes could be matched back in current position then re-artexed which we liked.  Alternatively, he offered to skim flat but I find flat ceilings never look perfectly flat.

ThisIsWeird

Do you have access from above, FG? A lot easier if so.

FlaatusGoat

Basically all I did was lay some very tightly fitting cuts of plaster into the slits so they would support themselves. Smeared the edges with filler and used that as an adhesive. Then for good measure overlapped the edges with more fillter. The hole one was a bit different as I couldn't cut a round hole very easily with plasterboard. So I shoved a bit of cardboard in the hole and stuck it on in the inside with more filler to create a 'bridge' in the hole. Then when that was dry I packed more filler in to cover the hole. Plasterer then came in and finished off. Looks OK now. Bodge bodge but we'll see!