Lath & Plaster ceiling question

UKJubilee_2

My lounge ceiling is lath & plaster. There is one spot that looks like someone put their foot on it from above and it's been getting progressively more saggy since I bought the house 4 years ago. I have several options (the plasterer is already coming in and has quoted for skimming the whole room inc ceiling)

1) cut out the damaged area to joists and put some plasterboard in the hole and get a plasterer to reskim ceiling. (issues here are that the cracks have spread from the original area some way and I couldn't cut all that out, and a neighbour told me he tried this on a water damaged ceiling and the rest of the ceiling fell down.) Has anyone tried this, were they successful?

2) overboard the whole ceiling and get it skimmed - when we discussed this option with the plasterer we would do the work but I have to admit to being a little nervous at trying to hold plasterboards up whilst trying to find the joists to screw it up. I could try and find out how much he would charge extra to do it himself (at least he knows what he is doing)

Has anyone any experience of option 1 and was it successful? If I do have to put the plasterboard up myself, has anyone any tips!

olias

You can hire lifters a bit like concertina platforms to lift the plasterboard and hold it while it is secured, but TBH for the cost and faff, I would rather get the plasterer to do it. Not sure if I would be more inclined to strip off all the old lath and plaster first and do a proper new boarding job (VERY messy though)

Olias

27col

When I stripped out our lounge ceiling 10mtrs x4mtrs. We re-boarded it quite successfully. What we did was to make up two t-shaped supports which were just slightly longer than the height of the room. Using these you can put one at each end of the board and this will keep the board in place while you screw it into position. Obviously it is much easier to get someone else to do it. I have not tried the board hoist so am unable to comment on those.

ormus

as above. ive never hired a lift.
just made up some PB holders as described above. better still with extra helpers. you can even do it with two brooms.
id rather strip the whole ceiling too, but it is a very very messy job.