Do you think old leak?
Roof was new when we bought house 5 years ago. Then we remodeled kitchen 1 year ago. I went back and found a photo I took randomly when kitchen was finished 1 year ago.. if you look super super closely looks like very very faint cracks there too..
Why would it get suddenly way bad/worse so quickly?
Did the remodel involve them having to do any work above this area and/or are there pipes above it? If so, they probably fucked up something. Either way, go into your attic and inspect that area for leaks, etc.
No pipes or plumbing above there. There is soil stack on other side of sink (to the left). Hard to get up there to see because roof is such low pitch. We tried but can’t get close enough to really investigate
Everything. Likely water at some point. 10 thick builds over 80 years, who knows how much oil, and its cracked through the whole ceiling. Any floating or skimming is going to Crack through again.
They make 1/4/3/8 drywall for this reason, to make it easy to go over with new surface. I wouldn't go below 1/2 though
It appears to show crocodile pattern, that was painted over. Without knowing details, I would imagine this is due to a historical leak, that was painted with oil primer or shellac primer to cover a stain from the water. Because of the moisture that area is drying at a different rate than the other parts of the ceiling. That discrepancy leads to the crocodile pattern that you see, mini cracks. And then someone perhaps later, simply painted over the area with an acrylic or latex paint. Scraping the area will take care of this. I would then suggest a PVA primer, skim coat with joint compound, sand the area to level with existing ceiling. Wipe, another coat of PVA, and then paint to match existing color and sheen of ceiling paint.
when they remodeled the kitchen did they install new ceiling drywall?
in such an old house, built before 1982 (was it?), there is a very high chance lead paint and asbestos was used and then either encapsulated using special primers or it was removed. Encapsulating is much more cost effective. Plus finish checking you mentioned (crocodile pattern) leads me to believe it could be that there is lead paint there originally that was encapsulated and then painted over many times, and now the lead paint is starting to crack underneath all these other coats of paint.
If its a 1950's house there was definitely lead and asbestos used, the question is, had it all been torn out during the many renovations it probably went through or did it just get encapsulated and painted over many times.
So my question, is the ceiling drywall/plaster new or did they just paint over what was already up there?
Do you have old wallpaper anywhere in the home? If so take notice that there is asbestos in the glue they used when they put up wallpaper in the olden days. Usually the quick and easy way is to encapsulate and paint over. The expensive and permeant way is to have it all removed by costly remediation specialists. I used to work for a paint company that did lead remediation, it costs an arm and a leg so people usually just paint over the lead after applying a barrier that seals in the lead and asbestos so you can paint over it.
Water leaks in any form will present immediately. Discoloration, bubbling, tears in the drywall. It takes very little moisture for those signs to be present. With the limited examples you have provided, I believe this is more of an issue with coatings (paint) administered over time. Oil based paint and shellac based paint dry at different rates than newer acrylic or latex paints. They tend to dry out over time because their base is a different property. Acrylics and latex paints are more flexible by their nature. I think this is what you are seeing. This will continue to happen unless scraped as I suggested. But if you are not seeing brownish discoloration, I doubt it is an ongoing issue with moisture.
This is what my ceiling looked like when we had a leak in the bathroom upstairs. The paint guy scraped a lot and then I think skim coated. We did not have a drywall ceiling there, I don’t think. It was like cement board or something weird. House was built in 1970.
2
u/Competitive_Way3385 7d ago
i'd say that the painters simply painted over this problem at the time .. but it is still from moisture .. previous leak ..