Plasterboard woes....cracks, screw heads visible....

[ABCwarrior]

Hi- our house is only 5 years old, it's all timber construction and on metal stilts(200mm) on concrete pads. The ceiling of the living room is getting progressively worse, think the joints were paper taped and they have all failed, and the screws are visible on some walls and along the joins of the ceiling to the walls...it looks a total mess under certain lighting and looks like it all needs redone. Looking at it I can see on the ceiling the skim on each side of the failed joint, if the paper joint is removed will this need sanded back to the original board too before I re-tape the joints with the adhesive mesh tape?? Otherwise it would be like trying to put tape back on an "upside down channel"(!)- ie take the boards back to a flat surface?.
What can be done about the screw heads? Skim over them or is this an indicator of movement?
The worst 2 rooms are the living room and our bedroom directly above, and I'm wondering given timber construction with no solid floor, and the 12kw multifuel stove in the living room whose flue passes through the bedroom pumps out a fair old heat 7-8 months of the year, is this the cause of the problem and are we wasting our time redoing all the joints etc? The equivalent 2 rooms at the other end of the house are relatively crack free and in good enough order, a few tiny cracks but nothing a bit of compound on a finger wouldn't sort....they don't get anywhere near the fluctuations in temperature or presumably humidity???

Any advice appreciated, got enough to do without adding all this (mess!!) to the list!!!

 

[stevethespreader]

I would say there has been movement what with the cracks and the screws popping , I don't think you are wasting your time re taping though take all the old tape off and and replace and respot the screws looks like you have no choice but to do it and hope for the best if it was my house I would redo it and sell it if there's MORE movement you will have on going maintenance issues

 

[ABCwarrior]

Cheers Steve, been having a better look at it and stripped back some of the paper carefully. the mesh would fit in the "channel" so may try an experimental small area to see if it can be retaped and skimmed without first sanding anything. The screw heads are weird, if anything it looks like the plasterboard has shrunk , there's the possibility of just sanding back the excess on the heads which may work, again with a minimal skim if needed....
May try this first and see how it goes over the winter (a few small areas) then if needs be do the whole lot in the late spring next year when the fire goes off for the summer....

 

[stevethespreader]

The plasterboard hasent shrunk the screws have popped because of movement or sometimes they pop because they wasent screwed in enough a mm movement in frame is enough to cause popping and cracks, you need to dig the blown filler over the screws out and respot them screw them in a bit while your at it if your doing it yourself look on YouTube and try and find a video on how to tape and joint its quite easy to do yourself once someone has shown you