need some advise please. just bought a victorian teraced house in quite a shabby state.amongt the many things to attend to, my master bedroom has a dodgy ceiling.it has been papered over (as has almost every square inch of the rest of the house) but its quite obvious tehre are four large cracks that run across the ceiling.
looking online its says to plaster board over the whole surface and then have it skimmed to finish.
the question is should the old latch and palster ceiling be removed first or just board over it as suggested? which is best?
cheers!!

We had ours removed first in our Victorian house.

best is to remove the lathe and plaster ceiling.

this is the messiest job you could possibly imagine. Every flat surface in the house will be covered in a fine layer of plaster dust.

I did my hall;

Danger of just overboarding with plasterboard is that you are adding a lot of extra weight to a probably already slightly tired set of joists above. But it’s a lot cleaner and ytou get some additional sound insulation if there’s any rooms above. Do make sure they use a lot of screws though you don’t want the weight of the plaster above shifting the boards and crackign the skim coat of plaster.

Personally as i have renovated a few old houses, I would hack it all off. Open the widows, tape the door shut and get in the loft if you can and bash it down with a shovel. Makes the mother of a mess but fun in a strange way!

yeah have it down great fun, big shovel or heavy rake, I did all of ours. Messy but good fun actually

Those lathes are amazing kindling, 100+ years drying means you barely need to show them a zippo and they’d spontaniously combust on there own

When picking it up it is easier if you pick the wood out (the worlds best ever kindling – its been drying for 100 years) then shovel up the mess.

Ooops 😳 great minds…

My dad who was official the world’s best plaster… I’m only half joking… he’s finally off the tools ( apart for the odd job for me and my sis) at 65 having first pick up a hawk at 15… boarded over lathe and plaster in my 1930 house.

If the joist won’t hold an extra layer of board and plaster make sure you don’t let a fattie upstairs … 😆

Usually a load of coal dust in with the fine plaster. Buy the best dust mask that fits your face and a couple of paper overalls, then tape yourself in with a few litres of water and some mars bars and don’t come out until it’s all down and the dust settles. Garden sprayer handy for helping the dust stay down a bit when shovelling.

I just had all my ceilings re-skimmed. They look brand new and there was little mess and it was very quick / cheap.

Usually a load of coal dust in with the fine plaster.

– or slate dust, from the roof tiles. Either way very messy.

If the plaster is still sound and solid, but just cracked, then I’ve had good results cleaning the cracks out, filling them, a good sand of the entire ceiling, then painting with this stuff. Lasted for 6 years in our previous place without any issues, despite being built on chalk and the whole house doing a seasonal boogie.

No, just board over it; fire 60mm drywall screws in everywhere. Remember if you take the plaster and lathe off you’ll have to frame the sheet edges out not to mention the 20 bags of waste and years off your life!!