OK so I am a General Contractor but I don't do plaster, I've been working on my own home for about 7 years on and off and I have a 24 x 28 foot great room that I wanted a plaster smooth/flat finish on the ceiling.
I put the dark blue/purple gypsum board up meant for coating with plaster on the ceiling about 5 years ago. When the plaster guy came to give me a price he asked where I bought it and how long ago and when I told him he informed me that the particular brand of board I used usually sucks up the moisture out of the plaster and that he would have to have another guy help him aside from the one helper he has now.
The day before he showed up to do the work I asked him if he wanted the heat turned down or off and he said no I can leave it where it is. He called me about 6 hours later and told me that the board had sucked up the moister from the plaster so fast he couldn't even smooth it out so he was going to have to skim coat the plaster with joint compound. He said this was due to the fact that it had been up for 5 years and that the gypsum board for plaster should be installed and plastered within about 2-3 month not 5 years, he never mentioned this when I told him how long the board had been up when he first looked at the job.
So he came back 2 days later and skimmed the ceiling with all purpose joint compound came back and sanded and put more on and sanded one more time. The finish I was left with was horrible but that is not why I am posting this.
I started going over the ceiling with a straight edge to mark all the high spots so that I could skim the ceiling myself to get it flat because it was so wavy but I started noticing hairline cracks coming off of every single recessed light I had in the ceiling, then I started noticing other hairline cracks that went about the entire length of the room and they line up approximately where the tapered joints would be. I'm guessing there is no way to really fix this and the only thing to do would be to gut the ceiling and start over?
I am thinking that since the moisture was sucked out of the plaster so fast it cracked where ever it was the thickest (which would be the tapered joints). Also IMHO as soon as the plaster guy realized he was having this problem he should have called me to let me know to see if I wanted him to continue or not, I would have gladly told him to stop and I would have paid him for his troubles. Should I at least call this guy back and show him all the cracks and tell him he kind of should have stopped when he ran into problems and see what he is willing to do?
I put the dark blue/purple gypsum board up meant for coating with plaster on the ceiling about 5 years ago. When the plaster guy came to give me a price he asked where I bought it and how long ago and when I told him he informed me that the particular brand of board I used usually sucks up the moisture out of the plaster and that he would have to have another guy help him aside from the one helper he has now.
The day before he showed up to do the work I asked him if he wanted the heat turned down or off and he said no I can leave it where it is. He called me about 6 hours later and told me that the board had sucked up the moister from the plaster so fast he couldn't even smooth it out so he was going to have to skim coat the plaster with joint compound. He said this was due to the fact that it had been up for 5 years and that the gypsum board for plaster should be installed and plastered within about 2-3 month not 5 years, he never mentioned this when I told him how long the board had been up when he first looked at the job.
So he came back 2 days later and skimmed the ceiling with all purpose joint compound came back and sanded and put more on and sanded one more time. The finish I was left with was horrible but that is not why I am posting this.
I started going over the ceiling with a straight edge to mark all the high spots so that I could skim the ceiling myself to get it flat because it was so wavy but I started noticing hairline cracks coming off of every single recessed light I had in the ceiling, then I started noticing other hairline cracks that went about the entire length of the room and they line up approximately where the tapered joints would be. I'm guessing there is no way to really fix this and the only thing to do would be to gut the ceiling and start over?
I am thinking that since the moisture was sucked out of the plaster so fast it cracked where ever it was the thickest (which would be the tapered joints). Also IMHO as soon as the plaster guy realized he was having this problem he should have called me to let me know to see if I wanted him to continue or not, I would have gladly told him to stop and I would have paid him for his troubles. Should I at least call this guy back and show him all the cracks and tell him he kind of should have stopped when he ran into problems and see what he is willing to do?
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