My hallway ceiling fell in last Tuesday, patch job went sideways fast

I was changing a light fixture in the hallway and bumped the old plaster with my ladder, next thing I know a 2-foot section crumbled onto the floor. It's a 1960s house in Portland, so the lath and plaster was already brittle, but I didn't expect that much damage from one tap. I tried a quick patch with some joint compound but it sagged overnight, so now I'm ripping out the whole strip down to the studs and putting up drywall instead. Anyone else dealt with old plaster ceilings just giving up on them, and did you use a specific backing board or just screw straight into the lath?

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sean_perry2d ago

Man, I used to swear by patching plaster and joint compound for stuff like this. Thought ripping it all out was just lazy or overkill. But after fighting with a ceiling basically the same way, patching it twice and watching both fail, I flipped completely. Now I’d tear that stuff down to studs every time without even hesitating. Screwing drywall straight into old lath is a trap anyway, the lath shifts and the screws pop. I’d put up some 1/2 inch plywood strips across the studs first, or just fur out with 2x2s, gives you a solid base and stops the new drywall from cracking later. That bump you did was just the final push, that plaster was already done holding on.