Ceiling cracking


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Old 05-02-04, 06:48 PM
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Ceiling cracking

I live in Maine where there is an extreme in temperatures from season to season. This spring, in two of my bedrooms, the ceiling has cracked and dropped down at what appears in both rooms to be a seam (it's a perfectly straight cut). I have images of this that I wanted to attach to this post, but it won't let me (is there anyway I an do that?). Anyway, my question is- how do I re-attach the part of the ceiling that dropped and then fix the crack? I'm very new at this, so laymen's terms, please. Thank you in advance!
 
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Old 05-03-04, 05:25 AM
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How old is your house? Do you have plaster or drywall? Do you have any texture on the ceiling? Thanks.
 
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Old 05-03-04, 07:23 AM
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The house is 16 years old. I believe the ceiling is plaster, and it is textured (bumpy). I have a couple of JPEG images I can send you, if that's possible.
 
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Old 05-03-04, 12:08 PM
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tvshooter,

Can't post pics here directly. You must post them on a photo hosting site that permits public viewing & then post a link to the page here. If you're unsure of how to do that see the announcement at the top of this forum title "How to do Pics" or something of that nature.

The description of your problem would lead me to believe you have a drywall ceiling & the seam between sheets has cracked, but it's hard to say for sure, so yes a pic would be helpful.

Something to consider is that with the ceiling being textured in these rooms, it may difficult to impossible to repair this back to brand new looking w/o scraping the old texture off & redoing it. Matching texture isn't the easiest thing to do.

If this indeed a drywall ceiling You will need to push the sheet back up tight to the joists & reattach it securely with drywall screws, then retape the seams with paper tape & joint compound, (aka: MUD) I like the lite mud, usually in a box with blue lettering or the blue lid 5 gal bucket.

Might be a good idea to take a look at the interactive links on this page concerning the subject. http://doityourself.com/wall/index.shtml

Post back with a link to a pic of the problem if possible. Good luck!
 
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Old 05-03-04, 09:45 PM
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I set up a page with pics of the two ceiling cracks. The link is http://www.northwoodsdigital.tv/ceiling.html

As you can see, the second crack is right along a seam, and then it has spread out. Thank you for your help!
 
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Old 05-04-04, 07:36 AM
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That looks like popcorn texture over sheetrock to me. I would advise scraping all the texture off the two ceiling, screw sheets back up tight to the ceiling joists, retape the seams & joints & any cracks. You'll have to skim anything that looks bad after the scraping as well. Then sand it smooth & apply a primer coat. At that point you can either apply a new textured finish or just apply finish paint. Personally I don't like textured ceilings in my own house, but it's a matter of taste.
 
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Old 05-04-04, 10:46 AM
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Well, because I'm selling the house, I'm not going to get into re-doing the entire ceilings. I'm just looking into repairing the cracks, particularly how to fill them in, what to use, etc. Any advice?
 
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Old 05-04-04, 02:04 PM
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One spot on your picture is loose tape. You can repair the cracked parts and respray but I would do as Awesomedell suggests. Selling the house or not. Don't be somebody who passes along problems.
 
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Old 05-05-04, 04:42 PM
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If I was "passing along problems" I wouldn't be on here trying to learn how to properly repair them. I'm not going to re-do entire ceilings over some minor house-settling cracks that I have been locally advised are "very repairable", particularly based exclusively on the fact that a forum moderator "doesn't like textured ceilings."
 
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Old 05-07-04, 02:19 PM
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If you're going to sell the house & want to patch it up as cheaply as possible, just take a sponge dip it into some thinned joint compound dab over the cracks until they disappear, & repaint the ceiling. Then hope for a quick sale, before the crack reappears. Otherwise spend just a bit more for a local wall man to come in a patch it up, however I wouldn't recommend that a diyer with little to no finishing experience try to do it that way on their own & expect a perfect result. We try to give the best advice to professionally deal with the situation, in most cases with home improvements, the cheapest, quickest way isn't the proper or best way.

Like I said, finish choices are all a matter of personal taste, what looks beautiful to one, may be butt ugly to another, whether we're talking texture finishes or paint colors. Which is why I don't pick either one, just put what the customer wants on the wall! Of course the beauty part of working for yourself is that you CAN pick which customers you wish to work!
 
 

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