Cracked ceiling - how best to fix?

[Sambob15]

Hi

The main bedroom of my 1960s house has a ceiling that's covered in painted woodchip. That alone would be bad enough, but there are also cracks along the plasterboard joints that are so bad they have come through the woodchip. My goal is to end up with a smooth, un-cracked, un-woodchipped ceiling! But I'm struggling to figure out the best route for achieving this.

A plasterer came round to give us a quote and said that if we remove the woodchip he can then skim the ceiling, and that will fix the cracks. However, having already gone down a similar route in the bathroom and seen the cracks then reappear a few months later, I'm sceptical this would work. I believe the plasterer put tape on first in the bathroom, before skimming, and that didn't help.

The plasterer seemed to think that it wasn't worth overboarding the bedroom, and said the cracks could still reappear through the new boards. Is this right? Surely there's more chance of getting rid of the cracks for good with overboarding than with just skimming the existing boards?

Any thoughts/advice/experience of similar issues would be much appreciated!

 

[vinn]

It would help you if you could find the cause of the cracking - typically, you would have to go into the loft and look for the answer(s).
Removing the woodchip might show more but its usual to simply overboard and skim.
But overboarding on long spanned, sagging joists would not work - go up and see what you''ve got: check the bathroom while your up there.