How to deal with Artex ceiling?

banie01

As per the title. My house is an '80s build Semi-D and I have the delight of stipled ceilings throught.

After a bit of work in the kitchen, I want to move the pendant and if doing that means dropping plasterboard in the kitchen? I may as well do the sitting room and hall too.

All in approx 60²yards to be plastered. Now whilst I'm a dab hand at most household jobs,I am a terrible plasterer cursed with heavy hands.

Assuming I drop the ceilings, what ballpark would I be in cost wise for materials and plasterer?

In the Limerick City area.

ted1

I was steaming wall paper of my walls. And realised the aertex was getting soft. So I scrapped it off with a scrapper and painted it. Turned out well.

just ensure it doesn’t have asbestos

C. Eastwood

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058277847/how-to-deal-with-artex-ceiling

I do not understand dropping the ceilings.

If you have existing ceilings with stipple finish - do not take down the existing ceilings. This will be very expensive and cause terrible debris in your house.

Fix new slabs over the existing ceiling finish and finish in hardwall.

Double slabs will reduce the transition of sound.

Get a quote from a plastering contractor.

ligind

Interesting timing , tomorrow after years of procrastination I have someone in to bring down the stipple ceiling and replace the boards in my kitchen and dining room .

I was initially looking at double boarding but an engineer recommended replacing the boards as double boarding would bring the ceiling height below regulations.

Some of the ceiling needs to come down anyway.

One of the neighbors had the stipple ceiling skimmed over and it looks reasonably good.

L1011

Had two patterned Artex ceilings boarded over in this year - the disruption of taking them down, particularly the upstairs one with over 200mm of fibreglass on top of it - was far too much. Handily I've fairly high ceilings though, 70s house.

The hideous cornicing has done more damage to the walls in one room than we'd ever imagined - nail holes and whatever adhesive was used. That's something that needs to be considered if you have that issue too!

ILIKEFOOD

We had all of our ceilings plastered over. Three pitfalls we fell into were 1) the plasterer wasn't great when it came to the finish.. lots of trowel marks, he only did one coat where I think a final lighter skim would have finished the job and 2) we had it done in February which meant a very long drying out time.. and 3) We didn't keep the windows open so there were a lot of marks left where water had pooled on the ceiling.. definitely getting the living room redone in the future..

If we were to do it again I'd probably go for reboarding.. that said we don't have tall ceilings..

banie01

Following up a little on this. Some more Google fu has lain out a possible course of action that's similar enough to some of the options suggested here and would also be far more wallet friendly than dropping ceilings.

1. Prep the ceilings, clean out cracks and refill

2. A light coat of PVA and then skimcoat over the top

Double boarding isn't really an option as I'm close enough to 2.4mtr already. Dropping the ceiling and reboarding? Is IMO far too messy and expensive for negligible gain. My only real concern with going this route? Is that moving kitchen light to centre of room would require knocking out a few holes and putting in some patch board? Would be easily enough covered by a plasterer when reskimming?

Any input on this being viable would really be appreciated.

Doolittle51

Hard to make sense of what you're asking in your latest post.

Are you referring to the re-skimming option when you mention putting holes in ceiling? If so, just bridge the hole with some wood strips and screw the cut out pieces back in place. There'll be a small gap which you can fill if you like but the skim will hide everything.

If you going for the re-skimming option, first apply 'ThistleBond-it'. It's goes on like paint, with a roller, It's great stuff, but really messy to apply, especially to a ceiling. So you'll have to cover the entire floor and everything that could get splashed, including yourself. Just buy cheap a roller and tray & dispose of them after, no point trying to clean them, the stuff is too messy.

banie01

Thanks for the Thistle bond suggestion, appreciate it.

I dug out the measuring tape today and I have enough ceiling height available to go the easy route and double board the ceiling and skim. Going that route makes me knocking holes in the ceiling to move some lights far easier too.

Should have probably done that at the start 🤔🤷‍♀️

Have had a plasterer in to price up the job and it's added to his queue. Will hopefully have it all done and dusted in the next few weeks.

banie01

Due to many other issues all piling on over the past 4/5 months, this job got long-fingered and I'm only getting back to sorting it now. The lad initially set to do the work has emigrated.

I had another plasterer out, and as it's not a deep stiple. He's suggesting PVA/Polybond over what's there and then skim that. The main issue I'd have with this is that the ceiling has had a few coats of paint over the years, at least two since I've owned the house and whatever the previous owners did too. To that end, I'd be worried that the bond would be to paint rather than the plastered substrate. I'd be worried about the skim coat dropping.

That led me to wondering what I could do to strip back the paint and get a more porous base for the skim. For better adhesion and less depth of material.

Would sanding back the ceilings with a drywall sander be of any use? There's no asbestos in play, and its a stippled ceiling rather than older style asbestos artex. Would something like this, with a medium grit disc, gain me anything?

https://www.screwfix.ie/p/evolution-r225dws-225mm-electric-drywall-sander-220-240v/490fj

ILIKEFOOD

Our guy just PVA'd it first and then Polybonded it. If the paint isn't flaking off I wouldn't worry about it. You could score the artex first and then PVA if you were concerned. Sanding will cause untold messiness.

I have a similar concern tbf as I'd like to do a final skim coat as the ceiling isn't as smooth as I'd like it.. but I've since painted it. I'd probably score it lightly if we do another skim..

Explosive_Cornflake

I'd thistlebond it, it has a sealing property like PVA, but has a sand texture on it to give a good key. It does work well over painted surfaces. As above, it's messy stuff, as it dyed green or blue to see where you have coverage.

ILIKEFOOD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120849576#Comment_120849576

How fine is thistlebond? Do you think it would work to bond a light skimcoat? As above... I had my own ceiling done but the finish wasn't good and I'd like to skim over again but since painted

Explosive_Cornflake

It's probably a 1mm sized grain in it. Ceiling paint might not bed that bad to plaster over, thistlebond is maybe more for going over gloss coats.

In your case, you might just get away with sanding.

GreeBo

Deffo thistlebond it over PVA, Its like PVA but with sand in it.

Sanding away stipple with be painful and leave an awful mess.

1) Move your light.

2) Thistlebond

3) Skim

4) Enjoy.

Your plasterer should take care of 2 & 3

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120870451#Comment_120870451

Agreed. PVA has no place here. Thistlebond it.

I'd even agree that scoring through the paint would be a worthwhile option as it removes part of the unknown on whether the paint-bond is strong. Then you know that the Thistlebond is well attached.