Repairs To A Celing Using Traditional Lime Plaster

A water leak had caused damage to a ceiling in the room below. This original ceiling (the house is Victorian, built in 1880) had been constructed with wooden laths, then plastered with base coats of Lime Render Plaster (ie a mixture of Lime, Sand & Horsehair), then a top coat of Lime Finish plaster. If possible I like to repair these old ceilings using the exact same materials.
The photos here show how this was acheived.

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Advantages Of Lime Plastering

There are many advantages to using Lime Plaster but the most impressive are its breathability and flexibility making it very useful for conservation and older buildings.

Breathable

Lime plaster will allow moisture to easily pass through whereas cement will trap and prevent moisture from escaping, leading to a greater problem - gradually building and then ultimately forcing the damp to come out elsewhere.

Flexible

Whilst cement based plasters and renders are strong in compressive strength they lack greatly in flexibility. Any movement can easily result in the very strong cement based plaster cracking and if used externally will allow the ingress of water and damp. Then the damp will be trapped behind a non breathable render. 

So while lime is not as hard, it's more flexible, so suited for use in an older buildings. 

In this room the ceiling was plasterboarded and skimmed using normal plaster. All the walls were plastered using Traditional Lime Render and Lime Finish Plaster.

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