Cracked plaster joints in sunroom

[zinfendel]

Up on the ladder to scope out a re-paint of a sunroom last weekend, and I find cracked plaster. The room is less than 3 yrs old, 18x24. It is on a deck foundation, but fully insulated. 9 pairs of sliiding class doors on 3 sides.

Thing is we don't heat this room typically in the winter (has a gas wood stove in the corner and 2 ceiling fans, we're in New England). It sees some huge temp swings. Water has frozen in a floating candle bowl left out there, in the summer we don't always run its AC unit. So I suspect that this can really stress the plaster with expansion and contraction issues.

The ceiling is vaulted with about a 18" wide horizontal plane along the apex/ridge.

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/ \
/ \
/ \

More or less, but not that much of a pitch. The cracks run along the ridge on either side of the horizontal portion.

What would be the best way to deal with this? I'm not a "just paint over it" kind of guy.

Route it all out down to the drywall, re-tape and skim?

Just route the crack and fill with mud?

Route out the whole joit and caulk with something flexible and paintable?

This is no amphitheater sized ceiling, the the temp extremes are a given and I think may be stressing this ceiling moreso than a regular interior room.

Any thoughts, or experiences???



Thanks

JH

[mdshunk]

How wide of a crack are we talking about? Typically cracks about as wide as your fingernail can be fixed with a good latex or butyl based painter's caulk applied to the crack with the finger and then painted. This will expand and contract with the seasons. If you root this crack out and mud it up again, you'll get to revisit this problem in a few years. That's a guarantee. Stay away from a silicone based caulk, as I've never had much luck with these working for crack repair.

[zinfendel]

Very small cracks, less than the thckness of a fingernail probably. I'll try the caulk thing, sounds like a good idea. For once an "easy" answer.

Thanks again...

JH