renewing plasterboard ceiling

[cadge]

Heres one for you experts, I have a woolaway bungalow ie its a sectional concrete building but good quality. I have one big problem with it though and that is the way the ceilings have been put up. All the ceilings are put in first and then stud partioning is then installed, fine up to this point. All the ceiling boards have polystyrene sheets behind them for insulation (its an early sixties idea) trouble is over the years the roof joists compress this polystyrene and I have problems with movement on all the joints and the boards were never plastered over, the second problem is that the boards were not staggered at the joins so some ceilings have a continuous line across the room.
Thats my problem and I have two solutions, 1 to rip it all down without taking out the walls or lay plasterboard over the top of the old stuff which also might move. Ceiling height is just 7 foot so a false ceiling is out of the question.
Would like some thoughts on the best method please.

 

[roughcaster]

Welcome to the Forum Cadge,
Most ceilings are put up first, and then the stud partition walls are erected. As regards to the movement on all the ceiling joins,due to the polystyrene being compressed, I don't think I would rip the ceilings down. I would certainly try putting screws along the joins into the joists first,or wherever they are needed, to see if that would pull the boards up and take the movement out of them, and then re-board over with staggered joints if you wanted to, then you could tape or skim. The extra layer of p/board with longer screws will give it a lot more strength too. Got to be worth a try on one ceiling at least.

Roughcaster.