Walls and Ceilings - hairline crack in newly textured ceiling

I'm finishing my basement and I hung drywall on the ceiling. When I had taped, mudded and sanded the joints they were fine but after applying a stomp texture, there is a hairline crack running the length of one of the long (machined edge) joints.

I don't understand how this happened now, when it was fine before texturing (sat a couple of weeks).

What can I do to fix it that won't look worse than the crack (you've got to be looking to notice it, but I don't want it to get worse!)?

I'm pretty sure it's not cracked through the tape, but jut a hairline crack running from wall to wall on this long joint. Will it get worse?!

By the way, on 1000 square feet of ceiling only one joint did this!

Hard to say what caused the one seam to crack. Could be any of a half a dozen reasons.

You can scrape the texture in the area, refloat the seam, & then reapply the texture, odds are the patch will show up though unless you scrape the whole ceiling & retexture. Bad luck my man,
I really hate when this occassionally happens to me, means I'm workin a day or two for free. We guarantee our work for a year from finish date. One of the hazards of diy, sometimes you get to try it twice, no extra charge. ;)

I would rub some latex caulk into the crack, then paint the whole ceiling. The caulk will hide the crack, and remain flexible so it won't crack right away again.

spoken like a true painter prowall! Caulk it! Just pullin your chain, my man! :D

Yeah that'll work too for a while anyway. Long as that board is tight to the joists on both sides of the seam.

caleyg,
Was this nailed or screwed & how many fasteners per joist?

Thanks for your replies.

no nails, 5 screws per board/joist.

The two weird things are:

1) no other seam did it and this one did it spanning 3 boards (I guess between 6) along the same seam.

2) it was fine until I textured and as soon as the texture dried it cracked.

Crack is present regardless of how thick texture is in any given spot, although it peters out a few feet from the walls.

For now I think I'll leave it because any of the repairs you mentioned (short of sanding and retexturing everything) would certainly be more noticable than the crack.

Is all the board hung across the joists, or is there some cross framing up there as well?

I'm not exactly sure what cross-framing is, but all the butt joints are on the joists, and all the machined edges of the boards run across (perpendicular to) the joists. The crack is parallel to one wall/across the joists. About 6 feet from the wall (so between full sheets)

You say you did a stomp texture. Perhaps the stomping caused the crack. Like Dell' says it could be a dozen reasons. regardless of the cause we need a solution. Since there is no paint on I would scrape and sand. Screw the sheets up again. re tape the crack and re texture. Tough luck but has to be done.

Thanks for all the help. For now it doesn't seem to be getting wider, so I'll leave it alone, lest I make it really noticable.

Bummer though.

Caley,

One idea you might try, if this is just a white ceiling, mix a little mud with some primer until it matches in color to your ceiling, then use a soft sponge & just dab it down the crack. Might need to knock it down some, but I think it'd be worth a try. If you don't like it wipe it off with a clean sponge. Just an idea.