I bought a house only five months ago. It’s a Victorian stone terrace circa 1900. The house has been recently renovated but I have notice a small crack in the plaster in the kitchen running along the wall right in the corner (where the wall meets the ceiling). Could this just be the result of a bad plastering job or could it be subsidence?

We had a survey and check, etc done only in July 2007 – is there was any history of subsidence or currently any signs of it would the survey pick up on it?

whats subsidence ? the crack is the result of the house settling or the plaster dryed to fast,

I had a plasterer skim a room and he told me it would take five days to dry so I did as he said and sealed and painted it after 5 days. The plasterer did a really bad job so I got the room re-skimmed and this time waited over a week as the next plasterer told me to wait till it was pink all over. (proper advice) What are the effects if the plaster from the first job was not completely dry? Will everything be ok?

every room is different plaster should take 3 days to dry but you should not paint till 2 weeks. i know lots of people who have painted within a couple of days and they have had no problems but if you did and the paint started to crumble and peal off you would not be able to complain to the plasterer. you should only use white trade paint first as a primer. put on a couple of coats and then once its dryed put on some better stuff. trade paint you buy in B and Q and its just a cheap none vinyl paint. as for that other coment about it should be like glass thats not true. it should be smoot but not glass, for the best result before painting lightly sand the surface to get the perfect surface for the paint to take to. last thing as well don’t try speeding up the drying process by turning up the heating in years time it will crack. just let it dry at its own pase.

Do i need to power down the system wiring as well please? And can I just stick the plaster / browning on the wall bricks instead – after sealing these of course?

O n the ceiling the light fixtures need to be taken down..on the wall just pull the outlet covers off but not the outlets themselves…when you take the ceiling fixtures off..put a "scotch lock" on each wire and tuck the wires into the box it is attached to..You cut the holes that go over the electrical boxes in the plaster board and slip it over them..

We bought an old house several years ago, and repainted the master bathroom. The humidity in that bathroom has already destroyed the paint, and it is molding as well as peeling. I would like to remove all of the old paint from the plaster (since it has mold in it) before refinishing, but can’t figure out what to use. Can I use "Zip Strip" on old plaster walls? I would like the job to go as quickly as possible! Thanks!

The best and quickest way is probably to rent a sand blaster. Is it going to be the easiest or the cleanest? Not by a long shot. But you will be removing a lot of the mold along with the paint. Your probably going to need to get a professional to remove all the mold. I would highly recommend a professional breathing apparatus that is rated for mold as well. You can get into some serious health issues when dealing with Mold.

My other half has been building for a little while now and would like to make a go of it long term. He’d really like to do some sort of course (recognised if poss) in general building skills, perhaps bricklaying, blockwork, plastering, that sort of thing, but try as I might I cannot find any info anywhere.

We live in North Devon and I had hoped the local colleges might do something but all they seem to offer is foundation courses and I think he’s a bit beyond that. He doesn’t want to get into plumbing or electrical work, he’s already good at carpentry, but he’d like to have some formal training in general building skills – can anyone suggest where might be a good place to start???

Thank you!
Devon may be in England but that is still part of the UK so my question still stands. I did in fact include it so that Americans (of which there are many signed up to Yahoo Answers) had a clue as to it’s location in the world.

Are there any sensible suggestions???

The UK is England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland altogether,

Devon is in England.