First, start planning on installing another form of heat. In ceiling electric radiant heating is crazy expensive to operate. Your payback with a modern heating system should be pretty quick.

In all the houses I've seen the heating wires are between the studs. You can go up in the attic and pull back the insulation in a couple areas to check. Once you've confirmed where the wires are you can screw the sheetrock more securely to the joists. Spackle the screw holes and then use aerosol can popcorn texture or break down and buy a popcorn texturing gun if you already own a compressor.

 

I agree! ceiling heat is probably the most expensive heat you can have. I'm a little surprised yours still works as many of them fail after 20 yrs or so.

 

I just doubly realized I was being somewhat lazy by not going up and checking how it was installed.
However I probably still would have posted after looking to make sure. I tend to get a little over cautious when I’m working on something I’ve never done before.
Anyway thanks for the response! I completely agree that I need to check into a more modern way for heat.

 

Before and into the early 1970's in the Nebraska panhandle ceiling radiant heat was common and popular. I think I heard the powere companies offered a special rate for electric heat. It was installed over gypsum lath the gypsum plaster was applied over that. An engineer or savvy electrician would figure out how much wire was required for the given room then the electrician made that much wire fit onto the ceiling. It was usually spaced about 2'' apart on the lath, not above it or beside the joists. The wire looked about the same size as 12ga or 14ga wire. I never stripped any to see what the conductor was like just how it looked with the insulation compared to insulated 14 or 12ga wire. Well, I think over the years the steady heat in the plaster, even though it was low heat probably calcined the plaster and it lost its strength, hardness and probably fire resistance too. I suppose the same thing happened in the gypsum lath. This explains the sagging if the wire was installed the way I saw it done. Seems like the wire would have broken somewhere in the lid if it sags. You could try screwing it back up but the sag is probably set. If you propped it up before you screwed it up it might work but between the joists there is nothing to screw too. You probabaly will need a new system. Radiant heat warms people and objects but not the air so it takes a while to change the ambient temperature in a room.
Let us know what you learn.

 

Here in the southeast ceiling heat was installed above drywall. Didn't realize it was also used in plaster homes.

 

 

Hopefully the picture posted to my previous post. If not it is says gold bond fire shield panelectric. There is no lath and plaster there is nothing in between trusses. On the panels it even says to connect in parallel! Has anyone ever heard of radiant sheetrock panels? I researched it a little and some guys call it “hot rock”. It supposedly is marked on the living side where to nail it on and marked where the radiant is run through it????
I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not, hahaha!
i thought about borrowing the IR camera from work and turn on the heat and screw it in where it’s needed, and plan to replace it when I become rich and famous 🤣.

 

your pic link doesn't work, here are some instructions for posting pics
https://www.doityourself.com/forum/electrical-ac-dc-9/

 

Here is an interesting read.

 

I figured how to post a picture.... I hope!

 

Thanks for the link! I was using my phone and on the mobile site, so I copied and pasted the pic and of course didn’t work. I had to click on the full website version to see the go to advanced to be able to post the picture.

 

so i finally decided to experiment scraping off the popcorn texture to see if I could find the nail holes and try to fix it with screws. (If it didn’t work I was going to tear it down). I am starting with the worst room and scraping off the popcorn texture was easier than I thought. I sprayed it with a little water to keep the dust down, but if a guy were to bring in a garden hose with a mist sprayer- I think it would come off even easier. Anyway it scraped off so well I could see the writing of where to nail(screw) and where the nails were. I started screwing the edges and worked towards the worst sagging part of the ceiling and salvaged the ceiling and heat source. next I am going to get a pellet stove to keep he heating cost down.

 

The last time I ran into sagging radiant ceiling I tore it down and replaced with sheetrock. To make things really exciting several snake skins came falling down with the ceiling. Luckily this house had sat vacant for a while so there were no live ones.