Hi -

About a year ago I flooded the bathroom which resulted in some water leaking down from the living room ceiling. There is a bit of water damage and a nasty looking crack which appeared on the ceiling through the artex.

I was thinking that the best approach would be to mix some PVA (1:1) with water and seal this crack and then reskim the entire ceiling with plaster. I am decorating at the same time so want a clean slate and dont really like the look of artex and dont want the hassle of steaming it off.

There wasn't a great about of water that came through, i was wondering is this a good approach?

I'm new to DIY so please be patient.

Is it safe to do this? What is the likely hood of the ceiling collapsing due to the water damage?

I'm a little worried as there's a wall above our living room that doesn't seem to be supported by anything but i think the internal walls in here are just plasterboard.

The crack runs from one end of the ceiling all the way up to the light fitting. I've had an electrician round since. Please see the pictures.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers


Paul

Hi Paul, you have a couple of options. the most drastic is take the ceiling down, board and skim. the sensible option is to overboard the ceiling and skim it and the cheapest option is to over skim it.

I personally always recommend to my customers to overboard as Artex has to be scraped before you can skim it, this can be quite messy and the older artex contains asbestos. Its also been known to peel off once its had a coat of PVA.

With overboarding you don't have the mess of ripping it down or don't have the mess of scraping the artex, yet you still get a brand new, crack free ceiling.

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Plasterer in Coventry