I have the apartment in 15 floor building 1975 year build. It has pop corn. I hate it and want to remove. Main problem is that texture was applied on the concrete slab (no drywall). Builder used plywood to form the slab and was not accurate enough (plywood prints on the slab have height drops up to 1 inch and filled with pop corn like substance).
Talking with my neighbors who removed popcorn I found out:
a. This is really hard work (if You do it yourself) or expensive (if hire somebody)
b. It messy work and best way is to remove all furniture from the rooms
c. The regular wet/dry pop corn scrapping with regular skin-coat plastering is not enough to hide height drops.
d. may be I’m crazy but I could not find really perfect result (Every time I could find couple places with not perfect flat surface . Be sure I did not used microscope to find them) Windows in our building go up to the ceiling, and flat light parallel to the ceiling shows all level irregulars.
They gave me two ideas:
To install drywall (It is require to install framing and drop the ceiling about 2 1/2"). This is well known way
To install stretch ceiling.
Contractor who suggested the last way was very talkative about stretch ceiling advantages. Pictures he show me were very nice but…
Did somebody have stretch ceiling in Your house and what do you think about this? Or may by somebody could suggest another way to eliminate my pop corn?
Thank You
You are right about removing the popcorn being messy. I didn’t find it too hard or time consuming, but it depends if the popcorn has been painted. If it has not been painted, then it’s just a matter of wetting it down and scraping it off. If it has been painted, it will need to be sanded as the paint will prevent the water from penetrating.
But removing the popcorn is just the first step. Then you’ll need to skim. And as you have seen, there are many irregularities on the ceiling which means you cannot do a simple skim coat. You’ll need to install something on top.
I’m not sure I would go with a stretch ceiling. It seems odd to have a plastic sheet as a ceiling. What happens if it gets a rip or something? You would need to be prepared for future expenses to repair or replace it as necessary.
I would recommend getting drywall. The new drywall would be attached to wooden slats attached to the ceiling. You wouldn’t have to remove all the popcorn–just remove it where the wood slats go. You would want to make sure that the wooden slats are wedged as necessary so that the lower surface of all the slats line up properly. If the contractor just attaches the slats to the ceiling, the slats will follow the contour of the ceiling and you’ll have irregularities in the drywall.
Be sure to convey what you want the final result to look like. They’ll need to use the proper thickness of drywall (5/8) so that it doesn’t sag. It is very easy to do a bad skim coat and many contractors won’t want to take the time to make the surface flat and smooth. To check the results, get a powerful light (300w) and shine it along the surface of the ceiling so that any imperfections show up.
If you wanted to try an experiment, scrape the popcorn from just one room and then put a knockdown texture on the cement ceiling. Knockdown is a low-profile texture which looks good and may hide the ceiling imperfections. If you haven’t seen it before, look on youtube to see what knockdown looks like. Since it wouldn’t require drywall, you could save a lot of money.
You definitely want to empty the room to remove the old popcorn. Put a heavy tarp on the floor and tape lightweight poly tarps to the wall. Just let everything drop as you scrape and wrap it all up and throw it away. As mentioned above you don’t need to remove it if you put in a new ceiling under framing. Stretch ceilings can be complicated, you should have a contractor install that. You can also use a simple drop ceiling if you can attach hangers to the concrete ceiling. You don’t need to remove the popcorn that way either. You do need to leave enough room to install/remove/replace ceiling panels though.
A laser level will be a great help in getting the furred out wood and new drywall to go up evenly on the uneven existing ceiling. You can rent them now at many building material retailers or a rental shop.
Unless it’s a code thing where you are, I don’t see an absolute need for 5/8 drywall, tho it isn’t a bad or wrong idea either. I’ve done several cover ups in old homes with 1/2 and even 1/4 inch. Fur it out correctly with enough new wood framing, and you shouldn’t have sagging issues. Also, make sure you attach the new wood you are furring it out with securely. imho, obviously ymmv (yes, those ceilings I did are still perfect looking years later)