Remove Popcorn Texture From a Ceiling
The following article will show you effectively remove popcorn texture from your ceiling. Many modern day home owners desire a smooth surface ceiling or one that is textured in something other than popcorn texture which became very popular in the 70's. You can do this yourself and save a load of money - it just takes some time and lots of elbow grease.
Instructions
1. Please keep in mind before you start that your ceiling material should be tested for asbestos if you currently have popcorn texture and your home is an older home. You can find certified asbestos professionals that will come collect it and send the sample off for testing in the yellow pages under "Asbestos - Consulting and Testing" or call the EPA at 202-554-1404. If your ceiling is found to contain asbestos, do not touch it, leave it alone! You will need to go another route.
2. Also, if your popcorn texture has been painted, you are going to have a more difficult time removing it.
3. Begin by removing all furniture and other items from your room. This is a very messy process and you do not want your personal items covered in debris.
4. Lay out your plastic sheeting to cover the entire floor in your room. Over lay the plastic so that debris scraped from the ceiling will not find it's way between the cracks in the plastic. Use the masking tape to tape each overlayed piece to the other.
5. I prefer starting in the middle of a room so that I can work my way easily into corners. With this in mind, place your ladder in the center of the room.
6. Put on your mask and gloves. Put hot water in the plastic squirt bottle and place the nozzle where it will spray a mist. Get your scraper. Step up onto the ladder at a comfortable height to reach the ceiling.
7. Spray enough mist on an area of the ceiling to make it easy to scrape off. You should not soak the area but the mist should be applied fairly heavily. You may need to let the hot water penetrate the texture for a few minutes before you begin scraping.
8. Do not use the corner edge of the scraper, you could gouge the ceiling that way. Use enough force and glide the whole flat part of the scraper across the texture angling the scraper downwards slightly.
9. It is not necessary to remove all the under texture. You don't want to get into the tape and bed that joins the ceiling panels. Just go for scraping off the majority of the popcorn texture.
10. Work your way around the room until the project is complete. After the ceiling dries completely, you may want to sand it slightly to prepare it for new texturing. If you need to sand, leave the plastic on the floor in place until the sanding process is complete. Otherwise, grab the plastic by one corner and then the next, shaking the debris towards the middle of the plastic and folding each corner in to trap the debris in the middle. Remove the plastic to the garbage.
Tags: popcorn texture, your ceiling, ceiling that, from your, Remove Popcorn