i have one room in the house with popcorn ceiling (otherwise known as spray on ceiling, spackle, etc.). It's the most incredibly disgusting thing you'll even see on a ceiling since if it's stil there, its probably at least 20 years old by now and might have asbestos in it. anyway, i have to remove this stuff because we're redoing the room and i was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to do this efficiently. room is 8 x 12.
Its messy, I've know people that have sprayed water on it and then scraped it off. Most people I've known have hired a contractor to do it since its not fun. You don't have that big of an area so it probably isn't that big a deal to do yourself. As far as the asbestos, if you really think it is, you might not want to find out and sell that house instead. If it is, thats a whole different situation
We bought a house that had popcorn ceilings. It turned out that there was asbestos in it, although in smaller amounts. The asbestos is actually in the mud that holds it together, rather than the popcorn itself, which is made from styrofoam. We had it removed professionally, then textured and painted. The contractor put down tarps on the floor and hung plastic sheets to prevent anything from going to the other rooms. Our family room has 16 foot ceilings and is quite large. The contractor sprayed the ceiling and then scraped it. I don't remember the price, but it wasn't as bad as I had expected. You can get the ceiling material tested for asbestos. What you do is spray an area with water until it is good and saturated, then scrape a small amount into a bottle. There should be listings in your local yellow pages for places that will do the testing. I don't know what the actual risks are if you did it yourself, but have read that it only takes a single fiber of asbestos in your lungs to cause a problem.
I took the stuff off a very small area of my ceiling using water and a spatula. The small area took over a hour to do and 2 hours to get the damn stuff cleaned up. Hire someone or you'll go crazy.
ugh i'm gonna test the ceiling first for asbestos. If it comes back negative, I'll hire a day laborer to do it for me. if its positive, I'm screwed, cuz then I gotta get the whole house checked and leaned.
depends on how old the ceiling is. The gov't stopped the asbestos stuff in 83 or 86, I think. I'm not sure when the previous owners put up the popcorn ceilins, so I'm kinda in the dark about it till I get it tested.
well theres a high chance the day laborer will be hispanic, but I also might hire my friend to do it, he needs to pay rent.
Love the "Hispanic?" thing, brilliant. As far as the popcorn ceiling I am posting this before I google but it is probably one of those things that sounds a lot better than it actually is. /GIS "popcorn ceilings" //hispanic?, teehee!
