Cracking Noise from bedroom Ceiling

[troy]

The ceiling of my 1971 3 bed detached makes a sharp cracking noise during the night and sometimes during the day.
It sounds like some one clapping their hands together and is loud enough to wake the dead. My guess is it's to do with the change in temperature causing expansion and contraction in the plaster board ceiling. Can anyone offer a remedy short of ripping down the ceiling and replacing with a new one.

 

[nstreet]

Are there any cracks in the ceiling? Sounds a bit loud for that. Have you had any new brick work or plastering done recently. We had a similar thing some years ago following the addition of a new extension. It was the extension settling and the plaster cracking, we found a few harline cracks after a couple of weeks. Do you have any pipe work in the ceiling, could be its too tight against a joist.

 

[troy]

Thanks for your reply.
The upstairs WC cubical was removed which involved removing and replacing a small ceiling joist, but the areas above the bedrooms are well supported. We had a similar but more severe problem with the main adjacent bedroom before any alteration to the bathroom and WC. The only way I found to cure the problem was to completely remove the ceiling plaster board and renew, but not tie the edges into walls, as that's where some of the noise seemed to originate. It worked, but it was allot of trouble and mess, so I'm looking for an alternative.