What causes new skim plaster to crack in stud walls?

[SimonD]

Further to my earlier post I'm trying to understand why I've experienced cracking in the skim on new plasterboard on stud walls. I've had a look and it appears that skrim tape has been used at these joints.

 

Can someone shed some light on other reasons this might happen? And is it fairly common for cracks to appear in new plasterwork as snagging?

[Russell griffiths]

Poor stud work, out of alignment so boards bending to compensate. 
wet studs drying out

poor boarding, not cutting around doors just butting up. 
boards not falling on studs correctly 

not enough screws. 
 

the list goes on and on. 
 

I boarded mine, to the letter, it couldn’t have been done any better, I have minimal cracking. 
but I definitely have a few in places that i really thought wouldn’t have, it’s a bit of a bastard really. 
it just depends if you have a few or a lot. 

[joe90]

Accuracy in studding and boarding will certainly help and it occurs to me that metal studding is less likely to cause problems as it’s straighter and does not shrink?

[Pocster]

I did my stud and boarding much to everyone’s humour . Only one small place where I missed a stud - thought (expletive deleted) it be ok . Only place of course the plaster has cracked …. Noggins become your new friend 

[SimonD]

On 31/10/2024 at 13:12, Russell griffiths said:

poor boarding, not cutting around doors just butting up. 
boards not falling on studs correctly 

 

Ah yes, thanks. I've investigated only to find that this appears to be the case. Where two cracks they're along the lines of a cut down board that only spans 600mm so it's only on two half studs. No wonder it's cracked around the joints.

Now I have to figure out what to do about it. Just fixing the cracks is going to do the job really.

 

Do I take the drastic action to cut this out, make a bigger whole and reboard to span several studs? It's a big wall 3.1m high by 7.4m long so not really practical to do the whole thing.

 

On 31/10/2024 at 14:51, joe90 said:

Accuracy in studding and boarding will certainly help and it occurs to me that metal studding is less likely to cause problems as it’s straighter and does not shrink?

 

Studding is pretty spot on as I did all that myself and its been in a long time so perfectly acclimatised to the house now.

On 31/10/2024 at 16:41, Pocster said:

I did my stud and boarding much to everyone’s humour . Only one small place where I missed a stud - thought (expletive deleted) it be ok . Only place of course the plaster has cracked …. Noggins become your new friend 

 

Yes, the third crack is at a joint that has missed the stud - thankfully one side of the wall is open so I can fix this easily!