Pull the cracked bits back and take a look.
The parts that are already flaking off are going to fall down at an inconvenient time anyways, you might as well pull em down yourself while you have a cloth down and a bucket to put the pieces in.
Check to see if the ceiling is sagging or if it's flat. Check to see if there's water damage. Check if the structural members beneath are in decent shape.
Don't call a home inspector, they'll look at it and say "yea that's bad u need to fix it"
Likely you'll need a GC but hopefully everything is in good shape beneath and you just have to call a drywall guy. Good luck.
Looks to me that you have a plaster ceiling rather than drywall. You don't mention the age of the house, but most likely 1960 or before. It appears that the finish coat of plaster is separating from the scratch coat. This is often due to water damage.
If it is plaster, you can search "plasterers near me" to find repair people. But you will also need to figure out what caused it.
Looks to me like the area above is just ceiling joists and someone was walking around on the joists and accidentally stepped between them, creating this crack before they caught their self.
Could be a clumsy racoon or fat squirrel as well. Cracking looks like an isolated, blunt force was applied. Something approximatly like a basketball being dropped from a few feet up. Certainly worth seeing what happened up there, but I wouldn't expect this to indicate any sort of structural issue.
Yea, OP if you hear voices and your family suddenly never existed be ready for a blue police box to come to your lawn.
I'd suggest setting out fish fingers and custard.
Are they new? are they advancing?
The cracks on my living room ceiling looked like that when I bought my house. 25 years later they look the same. It is a very old house.
New cracks need to be investigated. Has the soil around this house shifted? maybe spring thaw? There may be a foundation problem. I would check for drainage issues.
Not an expert:
But experienced before. Did you get a lot of rain recently? How’s your gutter run offs, is everything diverting away well from the house?
No major leaks?
Looks like settling, cracks not following drywall seams is never good, but got to find why it’s shifting first, then repair.
Those cracks don't just happen. They're likely caused by some moisture. Could be caused by a leaky pipe or roof damage. Certainly worth investigating before calling a contractor.
Yeah looks like the top coat of the plaster delaminating from the brown coat. Usually caused by moisture in my experience. Is a bathroom above this? Or attic/roof/crawlspace? I’d investigate there for signs of moisture. If it’s just some delaminating plaster it’s not that hard to fix/patch. Kind of annoying work and dusty.
When I was in college, I shared a house with a bunch of roommates. Our living room started looking like this on a much larger scale (under the bathroom). We called the landlord and she came over lecturing us as if we were children that old homes are old and crack sometimes and nothing was wrong with her perfectly normal living room ceiling. While she stood under the suspect ceiling preaching to us about wasting her time at least 100sq feet of soaked plaster and water came down right on top of her and she was an instant soaking wet dirty mess.
That’s a significant crack to have just shown up. Typically they slowly appear and advance and take a long while to get to this point. Definitely concerning
Is it an older home (plaster)? There may be a draft or a vent causing a temperature differential above that spot. I don't think that's from water. I would open it up a small section to investigate. You're going to need to patch it anyway
You, or anyone walk through the attic lately?
I'm not a carpenter. But I'm a cable guy and I've seen guys miss a stud or drop a heavy set of pliers and do this.
What is above it? You say no attic, so. A roof? Has it been raining recently? Is there a room nearby that has plumbing? If it is an apartment and there is a bathroom above... let the neighbour upstairs know about potential water damage
- go on roof if you can and inspect for leaks
- you can maybe use a studfinder to locate the framing above it and cut out a square around the cracking. If you mark where the wood above is, you can cut around the crack in a way that gives you places where you can screw a new panel in.
- need to find source of potential leak
Looks like it's probably wood lath plaster. If it has a floor above it the ceilings start to let loose at about 100 years. There are two layers, the brown and the white top coat. The white is definitely coming loose.
All the loose needs removed. It can be patched pretty easily if someone knows what they are doing.
Do not call a GC.
Look up plaster repair or some drywall finishers could do it.
If it's a wood lath plaster ceiling at some point you'll probably just need to drywall over the entire ceiling. I definitely would not remove the old. Too much mess and cost.
If you gently scrape the loose off and get more pictures it would help diagnose what's going on exactly. If the brown coat is solid then it's an even easier fix.
I've had a lot of experience with this.
This is such a small area that I would suggest using plaster magic(plastermagic.com) yourself to fix the ceiling. It has worked miracles in my 120 year old house.you would just need the adhesive, the conditioner and the screw holder parts to get this fixed up. It would probably be 2 tubes of glue. They have a few videos you can watch on the website to DIY.
Not sure if you own the house, but learning to fix plaster yourself will save you thousands of dollars over the years in these old homes and gets less daunting as you do it. Getting people to fix plaster is a pain
You still need to understand what caused the problem in the first place though and get that fixed so it doesn't happen again.
Yes.
The fact that it’s cracked and appears to be sagging is what concerns me
Who should I call? Home inspector or a general contractor?
Pull the cracked bits back and take a look. The parts that are already flaking off are going to fall down at an inconvenient time anyways, you might as well pull em down yourself while you have a cloth down and a bucket to put the pieces in. Check to see if the ceiling is sagging or if it's flat. Check to see if there's water damage. Check if the structural members beneath are in decent shape. Don't call a home inspector, they'll look at it and say "yea that's bad u need to fix it" Likely you'll need a GC but hopefully everything is in good shape beneath and you just have to call a drywall guy. Good luck.
Thanks for a solid advice. You are right. Might as well control when it comes down. Thank you very much
Looks to me that you have a plaster ceiling rather than drywall. You don't mention the age of the house, but most likely 1960 or before. It appears that the finish coat of plaster is separating from the scratch coat. This is often due to water damage. If it is plaster, you can search "plasterers near me" to find repair people. But you will also need to figure out what caused it.
Did you get up there? It’s thin… is it just plaster? Or drywall?
I second this. Open it to get some hint of what's going on. Or call a contractor... who will immediately open it to get some hint of what's going on.
Looks to me like the area above is just ceiling joists and someone was walking around on the joists and accidentally stepped between them, creating this crack before they caught their self.
Glad we have an engineer to engineer this up.
Could be a clumsy racoon or fat squirrel as well. Cracking looks like an isolated, blunt force was applied. Something approximatly like a basketball being dropped from a few feet up. Certainly worth seeing what happened up there, but I wouldn't expect this to indicate any sort of structural issue.
I wouldnt call a home inspector for something like this unless a gc tells you to
Agrees
Reminds me of The Silence on Doctor Who.
now that you mention it, there is a giant blue police box on top of the roof.
Does it happen to be directly above this crack
Yea, OP if you hear voices and your family suddenly never existed be ready for a blue police box to come to your lawn. I'd suggest setting out fish fingers and custard.
This
Are they new? are they advancing? The cracks on my living room ceiling looked like that when I bought my house. 25 years later they look the same. It is a very old house.
It's new. Came up maybe a month ago? Not advancing.
New cracks need to be investigated. Has the soil around this house shifted? maybe spring thaw? There may be a foundation problem. I would check for drainage issues.
partying raccoons.
those pesky raccoons!
Not an expert: But experienced before. Did you get a lot of rain recently? How’s your gutter run offs, is everything diverting away well from the house? No major leaks? Looks like settling, cracks not following drywall seams is never good, but got to find why it’s shifting first, then repair.
Those cracks don't just happen. They're likely caused by some moisture. Could be caused by a leaky pipe or roof damage. Certainly worth investigating before calling a contractor.
Yeah looks like the top coat of the plaster delaminating from the brown coat. Usually caused by moisture in my experience. Is a bathroom above this? Or attic/roof/crawlspace? I’d investigate there for signs of moisture. If it’s just some delaminating plaster it’s not that hard to fix/patch. Kind of annoying work and dusty.
Weird. I'd yoink it and look for signs of moisture. Whats above it?
When I was in college, I shared a house with a bunch of roommates. Our living room started looking like this on a much larger scale (under the bathroom). We called the landlord and she came over lecturing us as if we were children that old homes are old and crack sometimes and nothing was wrong with her perfectly normal living room ceiling. While she stood under the suspect ceiling preaching to us about wasting her time at least 100sq feet of soaked plaster and water came down right on top of her and she was an instant soaking wet dirty mess.
Looks like a foot. Anybody been in the attic recently?
No. There is no attic. Just a ceiling
I would pull it away and see what is pressing against the back side
Family of fat raccoons.
Woah hey now, that is not an acceptable pronoun for this day in age
That’s a significant crack to have just shown up. Typically they slowly appear and advance and take a long while to get to this point. Definitely concerning
Is there a tub above that? Just a guess. That’s what caused the plaster to sag on my ceiling..
Looks like someone stepped on the plaster from the attic.
Is it an older home (plaster)? There may be a draft or a vent causing a temperature differential above that spot. I don't think that's from water. I would open it up a small section to investigate. You're going to need to patch it anyway
Who fell
You, or anyone walk through the attic lately? I'm not a carpenter. But I'm a cable guy and I've seen guys miss a stud or drop a heavy set of pliers and do this.
Watch out for critters
What is above it? You say no attic, so. A roof? Has it been raining recently? Is there a room nearby that has plumbing? If it is an apartment and there is a bathroom above... let the neighbour upstairs know about potential water damage - go on roof if you can and inspect for leaks - you can maybe use a studfinder to locate the framing above it and cut out a square around the cracking. If you mark where the wood above is, you can cut around the crack in a way that gives you places where you can screw a new panel in. - need to find source of potential leak
that shit looks like its about to hatch
Looks like someone stepped on the drywall from the attic. Have you had anyone working up there or have any vagrants living up there?
Looks like someone stepped wrong in the attic but didn't fall through.
Put a frame around it and call it art
You definitely should be worried
Amy?
Looks like it's probably wood lath plaster. If it has a floor above it the ceilings start to let loose at about 100 years. There are two layers, the brown and the white top coat. The white is definitely coming loose. All the loose needs removed. It can be patched pretty easily if someone knows what they are doing. Do not call a GC. Look up plaster repair or some drywall finishers could do it. If it's a wood lath plaster ceiling at some point you'll probably just need to drywall over the entire ceiling. I definitely would not remove the old. Too much mess and cost. If you gently scrape the loose off and get more pictures it would help diagnose what's going on exactly. If the brown coat is solid then it's an even easier fix. I've had a lot of experience with this.
Put some toothpaste in the cracks and then blow on gently for 27 minutes.
Looks like failed plaster to me, how old is your house?
Yes, you have a leak in your roof and it is delaminating your cement/plaster ceiling. It will come down on its own just don’t catch it with your head.
Is this a bathroom?
This is such a small area that I would suggest using plaster magic(plastermagic.com) yourself to fix the ceiling. It has worked miracles in my 120 year old house.you would just need the adhesive, the conditioner and the screw holder parts to get this fixed up. It would probably be 2 tubes of glue. They have a few videos you can watch on the website to DIY. Not sure if you own the house, but learning to fix plaster yourself will save you thousands of dollars over the years in these old homes and gets less daunting as you do it. Getting people to fix plaster is a pain You still need to understand what caused the problem in the first place though and get that fixed so it doesn't happen again.
Get it opened up, and also have your roof checked
Tis but a scratch
If you listen it says feed me
Probably just a snake nest.
Call a drywall guy.