In my upstairs bedrooms there are cracks in the ceilings where the plaster has separated from the underlying plasterboard and looks like it's ready to fall off. The first two photos are bedroom 1 where the plaster is coming away from the ceiling and is pretty bad: The third photo is bedroom 2 which had the same problem as bedroom 1 but was redecorated over 18 months ago and the cracked/falling plaster removed and filled in, but now shows the early stages where the plaster is starting to come away from the plasterboard: Photos 4-6 show bedroom 3 which is as bad, if not worse than bedroom 1: The last photo shows the landing and early stages of the plaster coming away after being redecorated at the same time as bedroom 2: Can anyone suggest why this is happening? The house has some of the loft boarded over and used for storage but I don't believe having stuff in the loft is causing this problem. Any ideas?
Looks like someone has put there size 12 through them. Do you know if the ceilings were skimmed at any time, also be aware of the possibility of asbestos in the Artex.
The ceiling is undamaged - no feet through the plasterboard. Yes, there was a skim layer of plaster applied over existing Artex just before I moved in around end of November 2010.
The skim coat over the old artex is the cause of your ceiling failure, seen it happen on a fair few ceilings. Timescale is in the ballpark for it to have failed, it might not have been sealed prior to skimming, some use PVA, others use Blue Grit (other sealers are available) which is a better product. Two choices, take the failed skim coat off and re skim after thorough preparation or overboard the complete ceiling and plaster onto a fresh surface.
Cheers, so I can just remove the loose plaster, paint Blue Grit to the bare area and replaster over it once the Blue Grit has dried?
Remove failed skim coat completely, blue grit and re skim but to be sure I would overboard and re-plaster.