Skimmed boarded ceiling - tolerance?

Evening all

Tldr: how much tolerance for out of level would you expect a newly boarded and skimmed ceiling to have? And would it be unreasonable to get a plaster to rectify a 2cm "dip"?

Full version

We had our kitchen ceiling boarded and skimmed as part of a kitchen refurb

The ceiling was 1930s plus a 2000s extension which didn't align when the old plasterboard came off, so the plasterer and his helper fixed battons to the joists to level it all off.

(I wasn't watching them do this as I was fixing a central heating pipe that just "broke" after his mate "looked" at it - ps if anyone has seen the 30 year old apprentice skits on Facebook reels, he has this lad to a tee)

Anyway, they were quick, and had boarded it by 11:30am and skimmed by 2:30. Gone by 3.

Although a few bits were a bit duff, it generally seemed ok and we painted it after waiting, fitted down lights and got on with other stuff.

Now we're at the kitchen wall unit stage, and are trying to decide whether to fit them flush up to the ceiling, or have them down a bit (2-3cm) with either a scribed fillet going in above ,or just a shadow gap.

However, holding a spirit level up against the ceiling I was a bit surprised to see a dip of probably 2cm right where one run of cupboards will go. I say dip but it's inverted, so basically a concave section rather than it coming down too low.

The pic isn't great, but show the gap across the 1.8m level I'm holding up





So over a 5m long ceiling, 2cm isn't a lot. But sitting above a 1200mm kitchen unit, it will look a bit crap imo, either with or without some trim above the unit.


So my question is: would this amount of variation be expected normally?

And whether people think it reasonable to ask the plasterer to come back and level that "dip" off by adding more skim (appreciating I will have to let it dry and paint it again)


Thanks

Ian


Ps I didn't go with the cheapest quote, but a local guy who had good Facebook reviews and replied promptly to things.

The floor above must have a 20mm bump in it ?

Tricky one. Yes I would expect it level to a point 2cm over that gap doesn’t seem to excessive until you want to bump up against it.

Have a good open no expectations chat to the plasterer and see what his opinion is. Otherwise chalk it up to experience that it would have been best to be very specific and not make assumptions that making a bad job good means perfect to the same standards for everyone.

NHBC spec is 3mm per metre, up to 6 metres.

It looks less than 10mm in your picture, and in fairness, in less you’ve cabinets (as you do) you’d never see it, so it’s a ‘standard’ kind of job in a domestic space.

Yeah, your are right.

20mm seems a lot. I doubt the originals were that much out of true, I wonder if those were the joist which were a bit deeper originally than the others, and didn’t gain a batten?

Either way the time for a proper fix is wrong, and you probably wouldn’t want nearly an inch of excess plaster in a small area as it weighs a surprising amount and they would have used the bare minimum of screws.

It’s frustrating but you might be best to suck in your teeth, curse the “pros”, and just move on. It seems very obvious to you now but I doubt anyone will notice it in a finished kitchen without having their attention drawn to it.

It’s an unfortunate thing that IME most pro trades these days don’t care about the whole job or the finial finish, they just want to meet their brief “board and plaster the ceiling” in as little time as possible for the most amount of money. Never mind if they’ve left a problem for the owner or another trade to fix.

I’ve been left with similar niggles by a plasterer and a plumber. They’ve done their job as quickly as possible but left me with issues to fix or workaround and the final result isn’t going to be as good as it could, and should, have been. I’m of the conclusion now that in future I’ll have to sit over their shoulder while they work, pre-empting their shortcuts before they are committed to them and present them as “job done”.