Hi.
I had my living room walls re-skimmed around 2 months ago and have noticed long hairline cracks on the majority of the walls. Some of them are around 1-2m long and some walls have multiple.
Some of it is only noticeable when you get up close to the wall whereas others can be noticed from a far.
One of the cracks we dug a little deeper, applied filler & have painted over. A couple of weeks later its now showing again.
Is this what sometimes happens with old walls or does it sound like a bad job?
Please note:
- The issue cannot be turning the heating on before the plaster was dried naturally as we don't yet have radiators
- The plasterer applied this skim layer over the old coat which had lots of damage. We chiselled away any that was loose, could this be the issue.
Are you a tradesperson and able to answer this question?
ideally I would re skim and tape the cracks before skimming again..
The problem could be due to not applying enough pva on the walls or not tapeing over original cracks before skimming it I find sbr bond a good product to use on old walls before skimming them
So The Best Thing to do in a situation like This is Firstly PVA over all the walls. Secondly i would cover all the walls in the large plastic mesh the scrim tape is good but with the large mesh applied You cover all areas of the walls to stop any cracks appearing anywhere on the walls. Then apply 2 coats of finishing plaster This way You have solid well prepared walls free from any form of cracks!
Sounds like the walls were not properly prepared for plastering. Any areas blown should have been dealt with first and any other cracks should have been scrim taped. The walls then given at least a couple of coats of PVA (depending on suction) and then two coats of multi finish (first one with some bonding mixed through it).
Answered28 December 2022
1
Anonymous user
it could be the walls underneath have loads of hair line cracks and were not scrim taped and now there starting to come through the new plaster also.
That is happening on the old render and also on new rendering,if it was old rendering then applied multi finish on top the way to fix that problem is lining paper on the wall and then do any finish on top of that
Answered11 December 2022
0
Anonymous user
Multiple reasons why it can crack so soon either way it’s a bad job. Not enough PVA could be the answer. Maybe the wall should of been thistle bonded or rendered first if it was in majorly bad condition. Would of needed to be taken back to the brick if that was the case.
As I said multiple reasons why it can crack but it’s up to a good plasterer to make sure it doesn’t happen I would be calling him back asap to fix it. But then again probably wouldn’t want to use them again. Also I saw the other answer saying use sbr to uni bond the wall first that’s ridiculous use pva. Two coats let the first one dry and then a second coat and you skim it when it’s tacky. Not sbr I use that for rendering not skimming.just to add the wall could be blown and then skimmed over and that is also a very likely cause of cracking should of been taken back to brick first
