Every room in my bungalow has the dreaded artex swirls. I've already overboarded 2 and had them plastered. My next one is the largest room and I'm just a little wary of the extra weight on the roof trusses. I know about what might be in the artex when I flatten the peaks. The room is about 27.5m² which equates to about 220kg of plasterboard. I know the weight is spread out over the 6.4 X 4.3 ceiling but just being cautious. I could remove the old stuff but obviously there's a lot more work and mess involved. What's the general feeling about this? Remove old and fit new or am I worrying about nothing? Cheers
Personally I wouldn't stress about it mate, if you went into your loft then any one of those chords will easily take a mans weight at one point, the plasterboard spread evenly is nothing in comparison.
Put some timber across in loft. I've jacked up some ceilings that were already sagging but often just put timbers across spacing to allow for loft board width. Just large screws put at slight angle to hold. I call these timbers straps but probably bracing is correct term