I’m hoping I can find some help from someone who has experience in painting ceilings.
My dilemma:
I have popcorn ceilings I need to paint. I tried using a roller and because of high humidity in the house, as soon as I roll paint on, the popcorn ceilings begin to peel off. Roll painting is not an option.
I don’t want to remove the popcorn ceilings. Just paint them.
Can I use a Wagner Power painter? The house will be well ventilated - I just need a way to paint without ‘rolling’ the paint on.
Whatever you do, be very careful not to disturb it. Older popcorn ceilings can contain asbestos. As long as they aren’t disturbed there’s no problem. But if you start knocking bits of them off, you may need to have your entire house decontaminated. If it were me, I’d be tempted to have them removed professionally. I don’t believe it’s all that expensive, and your problems – including the painting one – are solved once and for all.
Actually, removing that spray acoustic ceiling crap can run into the many thousands of dollars if it contains asbestos. Asbestos removal contractors don’t come cheap.
If a long-nap roller won’t work, go ahead and spray it. My experience w/ a Wagner Power Painter was not a happy one, so I’d consider renting an industrial-strength sprayer. It shouldn’t take more than a day, unless your house is the size of a warehouse.
RE the aspestos, when was your house built. That should answer the question if you have it or not.
Is the popcorn coming off in sheets?
I’ve got that crap too. I also have VERY high vaulted ceilings.
I did roll a portion of it but it was a giant pain in the ass.
I sprayed the ceilings, hell, I sprayed my whole house. It’s fast, but takes a lot of prep work. Everything needs to be covered or moved. And you should wear a resporator.
Still, it was about twice as fast.
I bought a professional sprayer. If you go this route, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND getting the adaptor bucket so that you don’t have to try to siphon paint up into the sprayer from a 5 gal bucket.
My experience with the sprayer has been that it can be a bitch to get working, a bitch to cover everything, a bitch to clean up. But the payoff is - Oh, I’m done.
The little hand held ones may not work as well depending on how much you want to do.
Way, way worth it for me. But part of that is the high ceilings (I bought scaffolding too).
Also, if you spray, buy a masking gun. Basically, a paper and tape feed hand held tool that makes it quick to mask off windows and such.
FWIW IAAPP
We find the sprayers a bigger pain in the tail then they are worth in cases like this as it is such a small area and the set up and clean up time are just not worth it. Now, If you were doing every ceiling in your house, it would be worth the trouble.
The popcorn coming off is not an unusual problem. The only thing sticking it on is the paint it was mixed with when it was applied. Semi gloss paint ‘sticks’ better than flat.
It is possible to roll the celing, by simply adding more popcorn texture to the paint you are rolling on the celing By doing so you will be adding more texture to the ceiling so if you like the amount you have now, then go ahead and spray.
The texture can be purchased at your local paint store. We use what Sherwin Williams makes in wax cartons similar to milk cartons. Ask the clerk for amounts, but generaly one carton will be more than enough for your purposes.
BTW, Don’t try to put the texture in your sprayer. A gunked up mess will ensue.