Hi! I live in a house that was built in the 70s. All the ceilings are popcorn ceilings. How would you go about removing the "popcorn"? Would it hurt anything to do that? I saw a show on HGTV talking about how Asbestos used to be used in popcorn ceilings and they talked about an Asbestos tester. Where would I get one of those? Any advice is appreciated!
-AnimalAngel
Posts: 320 | Location: Texas USA | Registered: 06-28-02
Hm. I have removed many Popcorn ceilings before in my time.
The general precautions one would take to not get the dust all over the house and into your lungs would also go a long way to prevent asbestos poisoning.
In a living room with an opening to a dinning room, I would tape plastic up to prevent dust from going into the rest of the house. I would wear a respirator (Sold near the paint department, comes with cups for holding different kinds of filters - I use one of these since I do so many things that release dust into the air) I would also tape off or seal off under door cracks to other rooms.
I would also lay out plastic on the floor to catch all the droppings from the ceiling.
Then get my spray bottle, handy-dandy ladder and putty knife, or put my putty knife on a long pole and start spraying and scrapping much like I would do with wall paper. Spray an area 5' x 5' let it sit for a monute or two, then scrape.
Asbestos? I don't know. I think there is way too much concern over contact with this material. Most people live in buildings with asbestos in it and are breathing it in all the time. Most people will only do one job of removing material with asbestos in it. The content in the case of Pop-corn ceilings is rather low 3 - 5% on the average. This is not like the asbestos lining they used around hot water pipes and in protection of steel members of steel frame buildings from fire damage.
Unless you are planning on taking up pop-corn ceiling removal as a career, using a simple face mask and protective glasses is all you will need for this one job - perhaps rubber gloves as well since the stuff is messy when wet.
After you do scrape and sand your ceiling you may have to follow up with a texture of some sort.
The main use of popcorn ceilings and any spray texture is to remove the days long chore and hard work of putting on several coats of plaster to get a glass smooth surface. Unfortunately drywall hanging is not a precise art, it is sloppy, uneven and the end product once painted shows up all the flaws. A texture is sprayed and "knocked down" to provide a bumpy, lumpy and "patterned" surface which hides the flaws and seams of the dry wall hanging.
You can knock off the bumps and lumps and smooth the popcorn texture down with 60 grit sand paper on a block and lightly sand. 60 grit is fairly coarse and will quickly reduce the popcorn to dust. You can use water, but DO NOT let it sit, instead spray as you sand to wet the dust as it is knocked off. This is a little longer than just scraping it all off, but in the end you will have a smoother texture which will hide drywall flaws.
Knock down the majority, and finish off with 100 grit to smooth out the gouges - of you sand lightly you won't have many of those and a couple coats of a good thick paint will hide those. Mind, most people are not close enough to the ceiling to see the lines of sanding.
David
Posts: 3922 | Location: Leaving land, heading for the ocean | Registered: 06-03-02
After sanding (if you don't want to do a thorough job because the work is too dusty and tedious) perhaps wallpapering the ceiling with a good heavy paper would conceal the remaining roughness. I just saw a television program that tells the fashion slaves that wallpapered ceilings are coming back.
Posts: 6332 | Location: British Columbia, Canada | Registered: 06-11-02
I have looked at the links mentioned in this thread and noticed they either go to sites that are selling removal manuals or sites that don't cover all the details of the removal process. I wrote a manual based upon my experience taking these things out of hundreds of homes that covers the process in detail, from start to finish, including masking, removal, repair, texture and finish painting. I also tried to cover the asbestos issue along with tools and materials needed.
It is amazing the amount of ways recommened to deal with popcorn ceilings. I was looking at another site earlier and they claimed the only way to deal with them is to rip out the sheetrock or apply a second layer of sheetrock over the top of the ceiling. Take a look at [URL=http://edited to remove ad.com][/URL] if you are interested.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: gizmogram,
Rob - ads are not permitted at Answerpool...if you wish to post some suggestions on how people can accomplish this that don't link to a paid site, that is perfectly acceptable. Thank you
I apologize if my post was improper, I thought that since the link went to a free information site and the previously posted links from other users went to sites trying to sell that same information my post would be acceptable. I thought I was helping.
We had a similar ceiling in our Living room and we Scraped sanded used paint remover ...The Lot. and went through the Plaster ....Half of the room looked like a bomb had Dropped and me and my brothers were coated in White dust! We Had to do something to make it livable looking again ...and this was a time consuming Job.And on top this we had brought a big tub of Premixed Skim Plaster to repair the "Low spots" and That Was worse than useless Went Up, dried, Flaked off!! So what did we do in the End? Brought Several rolls of white Ceiling paper .Pasted that over the entire mess. Some of the Disaster showed through the Paper so we then painted the Ceiling with a Massive Can of White Trade Matt Emulsion We were that low on Funds!
Can still see the "Ridge" where we scraped the Plaster away in our front room
FYI The "Ceiling " is 3 8ft by 6ft plasterboards nailed to the Joists (and skimmed) across the Joints. Unknown when they started fitting these Late 50's?.Older buildings have Laths(SP?) with Plaster skimmed on Top...Very Hard to get right Tradesman Job only
Posts: 13301 | Location: 6 miles west of Wigan UK | Registered: 06-05-02
Originally posted by RobChurch: I haven't tried that one, how did it work out for you? Were you able to get it off without damaging the sheetrock or joints much?
it worked great just be carful not to let it dig in with the corners. had my roof done in a couple hours. it is messy. i would get a big fan and place it in the doorway two would be better one for incoming air and one for out going or both for incoming air blowing the dust out. ive not rtied the sqirt bottle but have done it dry. have fun wear a mask i believe there are some grate type sanders too you might look into on of those my $$$ where not good so the bent hoe worked for me. i would think you can use the back side of a wide toothed rake too hummm
Posts: 455 | Location: fresno ca | Registered: 04-08-03
A friend on mine had the same problem. The only thing bad about his was some of the peaks average between 2-3 inches deep. So deep he had to rent an airless sprayer to paint it when he first moved in. His ceiling looked like an up-side down cake with icing peaks.
Last year we took it down. We remove all the drywall on the ceiling and replaced it. This also allowed him to some wiring.
Messy job, but better then all that sanding.
Best done when the weather is nice so you can ventilate the area. Like what was mentioned, a fan in the window to expel the dust.
No matter which way you do it, be sure to ware a dust mask.
There are sanders that you can hook up to a shop-vac but this is still to much work. If you are going to make a mess, might as well make it easy on yourself.
Posts: 1587 | Location: Cleveland, OH. US of A | Registered: 06-03-02
I live in a house that was built in the 70s. All the ceilings are popcorn ceilings. How would you go about removing the "popcorn"?
