Ceiling Repairs in Victoria Park

The streets either side of Albany Highway are full of early 1900s and inter-war character homes: weatherboard and brick cottages, Californian bungalows and the odd Federation villa. Most of them still have their original fibrous plaster or lath-and-plaster ceilings, run cornice, decorative ceiling roses and sometimes a picture rail just below. These ceilings have had a century of roof movement and a few generations of renovations above them, and they tend to crack along the original joins and pull away from the cornice line.

Mixed in with the character stock are the 1960s and 1970s unit blocks and duplexes that filled the bigger lots as the suburb densified. These were built with plasterglass ceilings fixed to timber, and the glue and strapping holding them up is now well past the age where it can be relied on. The telltale sign is a shallow bow across the lounge or a gap opening between the ceiling and the cornice.

The newest layer is the infill: townhouses and small apartment buildings behind the cafe strip and along the Causeway end. These have plasterboard ceilings and a different set of problems, mostly water from upstairs bathrooms and air conditioning condensate, plus settling cracks in the first couple of years.