Laths on a lath/plaster ceiling - keeping up insulation

I've removed the plaster from a lath & plaster ceiling in order to have the ceiling boarded with plasterboard and then platered.The laths on the ceiling remain in place and are holding up the loft insulation i.e. the laths are stopping the loft insulation from falling down into the bedroom.

I had thought about just putting the plasterboard over the laths, but now I've looked at the laths there are many, many nails since the laths are narrow and are close together. Consequently perhaps it may be a bit 'hit & miss' when attempting to screw the boards to the ceiling i.e. hitting the many nails.

Perhaps it would be better to remove the laths/nails to allow the boards to be easily screwed onto the joists, but how to keep the insulation up? Perhaps stapling some sort of strapping onto the joists every foot or so to keep it up until the boards are put up?

 

unless there are massive sagging and distorted laths then simply fix the p/b as normal but use 6mm longer screws.
typically, you can overboard the plaster and laths - no need to remove the plaster.

 

Plaster has now been removed - this revealed to me the sheer number of nails (which will prevent screws from going in each time they hit) there holding up the laths.

 

i've just told you what to do - if you had already made your mind up then why ask the question?

 

Do you not think putting the screws through the plasterboard will be difficult since there are so many nails?

 

Have a go, any holes caused by hitting a nail could easily be filled in afterwards.

Pulling a ceilings worth of nails out would be a task and cause a mess.

 

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