Victorian House - ceilings, to overboard or not

[Bakersdelight]

We are about to refurbish our 1850s Victorian House and are getting conflicting views from plasterers whether to overboard the ceilings and skim or whether to take down and put up new.

The argument for overboarding is it's quicker and less messy

The argument against as it places extra weight on the joists which were originally only intended to carry the weight of the lathe and lime plaster.

I'd be interested in other opinions as the best way to go with this.

thank you

The previous owners of our 1845 built house put overboard up and we have had to deal with the subsequent issues.

The original lath and plaster does have a habit of eventually dropping and sitting on the overboard. In places this has caused damage. The whole sodding lot has had to come out. I am not joking when I say that my builders looked like they had come up out of a coal pit the day they ripped it out. My house was covered in the muck from it, even with doors sealed up.

We refurbished an 1860 house, we bit the bullet and removed all the cracked ceilings. We did it ourselves and it is the worst job ever, but we were so glad we’d made the effort.
Go for it, it’s only messy once!

Thank you both for sharing your experiences. It’s really helpful to hear first hand. Sounds like overboarding could lead problems in the future

We took our ceilings down and it is completely grim. DH did it himself- it’s not tricky just unbelievably messy. We completely sealed off the upstairs and then opened the house up downstairs and got lucky with the wind direction . It allowed us to then plywood along the joists to strengthen them and to take the bounce out of the floors upstairs and to fill the gap between the joints with insulation which also helped with soundproofing . A horrible job but worth it.

No,,grit your teeth,rip it down and reboard. Dont bodge it.

What about the cornice ?

Thank you all. We've decided to got for it and rip them down!

Ripping down as last resort. It's horrendous.

If the joists can't take the weight of some plaster board, I wouldn't want to walk around upstairs.

Get the existing ceiling screwed up to the joists. See if you can repair and skim. If not I would board and skim.