ceiling alternative

hewhoisnotintheknow

Hello, i need to redo the ceilings in my house as they are cracked and horrid, they are just plasterboard with artex on them.

When visiting a friend in a new house they had smooth ceilings, my friend told me this is just tapered edge plater board with the edges filled and sanded a few times, then the whole lot painted

Is this correct, how easy is it to do?

I cant afford to get a plasterer in

THanks

timnicebutdim_2

Hi, the difficult thing i found with overboarding is that the boards are heavy & big so you'll need a couple of people to help you put them up, or a thing called a dead man to hold it in place. Otherwise you could try smaller boards but you'll have to do more filling and sanding. It's not the hardest job in the world but it does require a lot of hard graft when it comes to positioning the boards/drilling and also lots of sanding (and lots of dust). Paint wise you'll need a simple base coat, then maybe two top coats.

hewhoisnotintheknow

hi tim

thanks for the reply

when you say over boarding do you mean leaving the old stuff up? and putting it over it

or do i pull the old plaster board down first?

timnicebutdim_2

i wanted to pull the old plasterboard down but everyone i asked said "no, don't do it!" I think its mainly the mess it causes and it it's not really that necessary, so as long as you use longer screws and make sure they go into the joists it'll look fine. A lot of people would say pay someone to skim it, but if you've got a weekend free and a couple of mates to help it can be a laugh (sort of! )

thebaldwindowfitter

it would cost you more to over board the ceiling that to get it skimmed by a plasterer

ormus

i dont see how diy PB can be more expensive than a plasterer?
8x4 PB sheets are about 5 or 6 quid from wickes.

thebaldwindowfitter

hewhoisnotintheknow wrote: »

Hello, i need to redo the ceilings in my house as they are cracked and horrid, they are just plasterboard with artex on them.

ive based my view on the fact it says ceilings in my house and would say £150 200 labour for a plasterer plus polybond and plaster .plasterers we use would skim the downstairs of a average terrace in a day .go through a cable or a heating pipe and it will cost you more than the cost of the plaster.

ormus

agreed.
but using that same argument, ill get a man to do the shopping for me cause i might have a car accident on the way to tesco.

tryingtoretire

a6windows wrote: »

it would cost you more to over board the ceiling that to get it skimmed by a plasterer

I recently needed the same as you but the plasterer tried a test patch of unibond on the artex and it went soggy. Go to plan B.
Plasterer had to scrape the artex off the ceiling before unibond and new plaster - looks lovely now!
A little known fact. Some artex contains asbestos. Plasterer had to send a sample away for chemical analysis. Fortunately the artex was only about 5 years old and didn't contain asbestos.

thebaldwindowfitter

ormus wrote: »

agreed.
but using that same argument, ill get a man to do the shopping for me cause i might have a car accident on the way to tesco.

i havent got an argument just basing my answers on what i know based on my building experience this is a money saving forum not a diy forum .out of interest how many plasterboards would it take to do the average terrace .12 ft by 12ft room would take 4 1/2 boards at £5-6 each then fixings,joint tape and filler before you know it its cheaper to get a plasterer to skim the boards ans if you did all the prep work ie scraped back artex if its a deep pattern and polybonded (there is a better product than this but cant remember the name)

thebaldwindowfitter

have you tried getting a quote off a plasterer?