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When we did the house up I took off the plaster until it was solid. In hindsight I should have taken it all off as a crack has appeared on the join.
Normally when I fill a crack it comes back later on.
How do I fix this for another 10 years?
shift your curtain pole a foot to the left, job jobbed.
I agree with Josh. We have quite a few cracks like that and just ignore them or place a picture over the area.
I think it’s a sticker
Helical bars inserted into the brickwork beds to stitch and stabilise the brickwork that must be moving, look it up on you toob to see how it's done
I'd just put a decent filler in it. I use easifil. Quick and easy. If it doesn't come back then job done, if it comes back in less than a year then it'll need more. Some scrim tape then easifil. If you feather it then the slight bulge of the tape vanishes.
Get a pencil and draw jagged lines over the whole wall and tell people it’s a trendy wallpaper.
Yeah, I’d just chase it out with a flat head screwdriver. Make the crack bigger to accept filler and see how you go.
There’s a good decorating channel on YouTube called, funnily enough ‘Painting and Decorating’. In one of their videos he does some complicated flexible stitch type procedure to a crack. No idea if it held up or is worth the faff.
Helical bars inserted into the brickwork beds to stitch and stabilise the brickwork that must be moving, look it up on you toob to see how it’s done
thats a hefty assumption!
I expect If you fill it with filler it will be back in 6 months or less as Chances are that’s just the building moving a bit.
Im No decorator but I’d say a quality wall paper or lining paper would be the way to cover it more permanently.
Obviously if there’s a lot of movement going on then you need to sort the cause but hair line cracks wouldn’t suggest that as far as I’m aware.
Im No decorator but I’d say a quality wall paper or lining paper would be the way to cover it more permanently.
So instead of one crack you have multiple lines every 36 inches
I scrim taped and flexible fillered the ones that appeared in my roof from seasonal movement.
Not seen them again.
Lining paper/wallpaper is hateful stuff.
Watched that video and now wondering how many things are going to fall apart if life ever evolves the CT1 weevil.
Lining paper/wallpaper is hateful stuff.
Indeed, but you dont ever have to look at the crack again, and when it comes to selling....
Nowt to do with me guv 😯
Indeed, but you dont ever have to look at the crack again, and when it comes to selling….
Just multiple lines ever 36 or so inches.
I'd actually rather have a single crack for part* of the year than that horror.
*If it doesn't close up at least part of the year you probably want to think about getting a survey in....
More information needed to give useful advice.
"a crack has appeared on the join" - join between what? Original house and extension? It looks like seasonal movement but if it's on a join it might not be.
What age and construction type is it, eg, 1930s solid brick, 1980s brick / block cavity? Ground floor, first floor?
EDIT: ignore
@Greybeard, it’s the join between original plaster by the window and the newer plaster.
Artex....
the join between original plaster by the window and the newer plaster.
Ok, so the crack will be shrinkage or seasonal, so just cosmetic, scrim and fill is worth a try.
Along similar lines... how big before a crack needs some proper looking at!?
Just pulled off the wallpaper in my new house and saw this (along with something less significant on the other side of the window).
Current thinking is to just filler it and see how long til it comes back.
We have the same in our house, usual remedy is to break it open a little more to check potential issues and damage behind, see if the plaster is secure, widen it, sand down then apply new plaster, then sand it again and paint.
You really want to see what the damage is underneath though, reality is when replastering, it doesn't matter if it's a 10mm line or a 100mm line you're refilling, they're not really much more difficult.
I've had good results with stretchy ceiling paint that's designed to allow small cracks to move without cracking the paint
I would definitely try the mesh tape and Easifil route before anything else.
@allyharp
You could go full-Clouseau 🙂
Was the paper torn (before you pulled it off)?
Is there green paint inside the edges of the crack?
Those checks will suggest how recently the crack appeared and how far the crack spread. Old minor cracking is fairly normal around openings, change is a bigger worry, so if you're not sure get a proper opinion
Chase it out and pop some mesh in, then replaster the wall. I had a persistent one and this worked a treat.
https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Galvanised-Steel-Reinforcing-Mesh---65mm-x-20m/p/240331
Any idea what might cause cracks like this? And how likely would they be to return through a fresh skim?
All 4 walls in this room are covered in small cracks like this - giving a dried out desert pattern. The walls were previously papered then painted. The photo from my previous post is the room directly above, which doesn't show anything similar. I'm guessing that this is some poorly applied plaster or it's been damaged by wallpaper stripper.
The first plasterer seemed happy to give it a fresh skim. 2nd plasterer was adamant that the cracks would reshow (which surely depends what caused them in the first place, no?) so recommended dot and dab reboarding over the top - which I'd rather avoid if possible (he also offered meshing all walls and plastering, as a more expensive alternative).
It looks like a skim on top of a previously painted surface. The pattern looks too big for "normal" crazing, which is often the skim drying too quickly. I doubt that vertical crack above the TV aerial socket is crazing, for example
Have a poke at a few areas to see if it's loose; get a third opinion and go with the majority. My feeling is that it's too much in places to just skim, but I'm looking at a photo
OP you could try raking it out and using a paintable mastic type filler.
https://www.sealantsonline.co.uk/Products/Paintable-mastic-sealants/CCC0140
Good idea timba, but getting a 3rd plasterer to respond and give a quote is proving impossible!
My main concern with dot and dab boarding is having to give extra thought when hanging stuff on the walls. Even if that is just finding some longer screws for everything to sufficiently penetrate the brick layer. We've got a very heavy vertical radiator to mount shortly! Is that something to seriously think about?
Whatever you do will be wasted if the old skim is loose and you have a poor base with larger cracks.
There shouldn't be a problem mounting a radiator if the fixings are correct, longer screws are one option. The more frequent problem is moving everything 20-25mm further out, the radiator pipes will need moving, the electrical sockets will need enough spare cable, etc. Skirtings and architraves will need replacing and possibly even the window sill, etc.
That's why I'd try for a third opinion, maybe a local builder? These are the jobs that they save for a rainy day (literally) or when there's been a delivery mess and they're hanging around