Have my ceiling joists been removed?

[Athers1971]

Hi, can anyone shed any light as to what is going on here please. This is a beam in one of our bedrooms, we have a floored attic (more on this later!) above and so cannot inspect easily from above either. The ceiling plaster is plasterboard and so modern.

In researching the property I have come across some "old" photos from 1979 which were undertaken as part of a local survey of some listed properties in the area. This one below shows the ceiling joists revealed in the same room (and the beam appears to have been boxed in?).

To my untrained eye, this looks like the joists have been removed - you can see the shapes in the first two photos. Or am I interpreting this incorrectly? I don't want to remove the ceiling (yet) but am curious as to what I may expect to find.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Kearn]

what you’ll likely find, is modern, replacement joists, unfortunately along with the plasterboard you mention. Or worse still, only enough to hold the modern ceiling up, not to hold a human on top of it…
The ghosts of joists recesses are highly likely what you think and the joists from the old photo long gone… I’ve seen far too many instances of this while searching for a new project house over the last couple of years… many instances where a few measly inches height gain were deemed more valuable than historic fabric. And worse still one where all old joists had been removed in a 16c cottage, along with floorboards above just to replace with modern versions in the same locations…

 

[Kearn]

Nice old worked beam by the way, looks like adze marks along it…

 

[Cubist]

Hi There and welcome,

Sadly I cannot view the photos you included in your post but I may be able to shed some light anyway. In many older properties joists were constructed using 4 inch by 4 inch rough sawn timber. You can crudely check the width of the absent old ones by measuring the base of the cut-out in the main beams. While 4x4 is capable of carrying a floor laid above they were, in many instances and where an upper floor was not needed/wanted, lathed and plastered to form the ceiling. Commonly the lath would be fitted either to wooden rails mounted on the inner faces of the joists and then plastered to leave the bottom of each joist exposed or the lath nailed directly to the bottom of the joists if they were to be hidden. Int would be unusual to find joist with a vertical profile of less than 4 inches but its not unknown.

There are many reasons why the original joists may have needed to be removed but the most likely is that when it was decided to lay a floor above to create another room it was found that height disparities between the joists were such that considerably more work and cost would be needed to achieve a level-ish floor (there would also be a weight consideration too).

Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Steve