'Another' Artex thread...

Soldato
Joined
19 Dec 2003
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3,102
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UK
Hey folks! So finally got the keys to our new house, first home, wooo!

Anyway... We plan to do a bit of fixing up before moving in, and the house being an early 70's build has the lovely artex ceilings in most rooms, barring the ones that have been modernised (kitchen/bathroom). The original plan was to skim all ceilings but cost has driven that down to only do the lounge and hallway areas, the hallway areas are awful, they have been repaired so as you know, Artex doesn't repair well! Lines, marks, gaps etc everywhere, a nice smooth plaster finish will sort it out! It's the 'popcorn' style - these are the ceilings only, the walls have not been artexed thankfully!

The only worry is, the plasterer has said they will scrape off as much of the 'popcorn' before PVA'ing it and then plastering, the latter being fine, but when I mentioned that it will have asbestos in being a 70's house, he didn't seem to be bothered about it? I know it's a low percentage etc, but pretty sure you are not supposed to be scraping it and causing the dust? I am sure he will wear a mask but it's the remnants on the carpets/floor I am more concerned about.

Of course, he is a plasterer, I am not, so he is more experienced than I am but does that sound OK to you? Anyone had a similar thing done with artex ceilings of that era?
 
Its low grade stuff at the end of the day, a good hoovering after & a damping down and you will be fine.
 
Generally they soften it with unibond coat, which also makes it a little less 'dusty' in my experience, then they'll tidy up the mess after. You should be fine, I wouldn't worry personally.
 
I have two houses which has artex and I just got them boarded and skimmed throughout. You don't want to start scraping it.
 
This is one of the ceilings that appears to have been damaged at some point, not sure what on earth happened - they are not all like that at all, that's the worst one, looks like someone either put their foot through the loft at some point or maybe water leaked before the tank in the loft was removed/no longer used.

 
We have it through our new house as well, my first option is to try and remove it with a steamer if that doesn't work i'm dropping the entire ceiling and putting up new board.
 
I had early 80's artex scraped off the kitchen walls and skimmed over. The plasterer was a bit of a diyer/cowboy so wasn't bothered about asbestos. Neither was I.
 
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