I would like to know the best way to repaire major cracks in my cathedral living room ceiling. They extend from the frame of the sky light to the wall where the ceiling meets the wall. The house was built in 1986 and the foundation sits on sand. There is also a big crack the whole width of the living room ceilling where the wall meets the ceilling. The ceiling is stippled. The very top of the roof is prefab trusses I think. The roof is very long, high pitched and sloping. The ceiling in the living room is 16' high and sloping. Do you have any sugestions. Please use simple terms as I know nothing about construction.
Answer:
The first thing you have to determine is if the house has settled or not. I don't know where you live but in the Ottawa Valley (ON) it takes a house eight years to finish settling and in the process, plaster cracks, large and small, are common. In a house with vaulted ceilings I would expect them to be even more extreme. There isn't much point in doing repais until the settling process has finished. Once that's all done with, you can use fibreglass mesh joint tape and ordinary joint compound to do the repairs.
