Other ceilings safe from collapse after part of living room ceiling has fallen down?

Hi Fran In my experience I would say that the artex wasn't PVA'd enough or at all prior to skimming. I give ceilings 2 coats of PVA with a fairly strong mix ie 2 parts PVA to 1 part water, 1st coat and Slightly weaker mix for the second coat 3-4 parts to 1 water. Then apply plaster while tacky. The plaster will separate from un PVA'd ceilings, if you tap the cieling with a knuckle you can usually hear the difference. Hope this helps

And I think that skimming over artex ceilings is poor practice anyway.Every time this is done its possible that it could come down.Your plasterer should have told you at the time there was a chance this could happen.Over boarding is the proper way of doing it as far as im concerned and it isn't expensive.

Could possibly be distemper from artexing onto lime plaster. You can tell as when the plaster comes away from the ceiling it has a white powdery appearance on the back. Some advise using a stabilising solution on old artex before skimming, but a lot of plasterers nowadays (myself included) will only overboard artex ceilings now, especially since older artex could contain asbestos. Very rarely will I just reskim an artex ceiling, and give no guarantees it won't come down.