Designing Kitchens and Bathrooms - ceiling peeling in full bath

We have a full bath on the second floor of our house. Upon moving in, realized that the ceiling paint was cracking, peeling away from the sheetrock. Figured it was due to lack of vented bath fan, so I scraped the ceiling of all loose paint, spackled and sanded to as smooth as possible, primed with a good primer(Zinnser), painted, and installed a vented bath fan. Unfortunately, less than a year later, it is beginning to crack/peel again. I am now wondering if insulation in above attic is not sufficient and heating/ cooling of the bathroom is causing paint to seperate. What could be causing this? Also, do I now need to pull down and replace sheetrock, or could I have a guy(whoe we've used in other homes and is very good) just do a skimcoat to give me a new surface to paint on? Thanks in advance.

Is the fan adequate to keep moisture from collecting on the walls and ceiling? Some fans are not capacious enough or not used enough.

Paint ordinarily peels because it never bonded in the first place or is pushed off by moisture. It seems to me that its having lasted a year indicates that lack of bonding is not the problem.

It does not seem likely that changes in temperature would cause this unless the changes were causing condensation above the bath, and the moisture was somehow transpiring through the drywall to force the paint off the surface.

This is interesting, because Zinsser 123 will bond just about anything. I have solved some nasty problems with it.

As an aside, the paint was not 'oil-based' was it?

Well, this was not much help.

Yeah, the fan should be adequate for the size of the bathroom. I bought a NuTone which was listed as appropriate for our bathroom size. No, the paint was not oil based. Basic Benjamin Moore Ceiling White. Thanks for the reply.

How old is this house?

At one time, a white-wash type material was used to do ceilings (forget what it was called). Nothing will stick to it. Not sure if this is what you have.

the house is about 30 years old. After initially scraping all the loose, flaking paint with a putty knife, most areas seemed to get right down to the paper of the sheetrock. The only place where paint had adhered well was over areas of spackle, suck as over screws and seams.

From my perspective, if the Zinsser 123 failed on the clean sheetrock, I would have a skim coat done. If Zinsser won't prime it, I am out of ideas.

Good luck.

Thanks. That's what I was figuring would be my next step before replacing the ceiling.