We had the plasterer in today, to patch a small area of blown plaster on our living room wall - turns out the "patch" was bigger than expected IMG_1876 by Barry Clayton, on Flickr
Not to much of a shock Brian. There were several places that sounded "hollow", I got the impression that much of the plaster was not attached to the wall. We have had it skimmed before, many years ago. We have lived in the house for forty eight years - it was a new build in 1977, and the builders (Lovells) moved my then neighbour in to a hotel for a month as all the plaster fell off their walls and obviously had to be re-plastered. The houses were completed in Feb/March 1977 and the builders were anxious to get buyers in to their houses, so had de-humidifiers running constantly to dry them out - they obviously overdid it.
Could have been worse. Years ago our friends moved into a new build house in Ash Vale near Aldershot. One afternoon the shower in the en suite upstairs came down and joined them in the corner of the lounge.