Covering artex on ceilings

Socrat

Hi!
The house I am buying has all the ceilings covered in small (popcorn style I thin) artex with possible asbestos in it.
I will test for this when I get the keys but I have in the meantime contacted a few plasterers to get a rough idea of how they would cover this and the costs...

Two out of three I contacted advertise as specialists in artex removal but all three said they would first remove some off the top. This seems to go against the advice you can find online...
Thoughts?
Is it safe to do or should I keep looking in hope to find one that would do it differently?

thanks.

ciderboy2009

I've recently had a couple of artexed ceilings covered in a 1930's house.

I was advised against just skimming with plaster as it would add weight which the ceiling might not be able to take.

Instead the fitted some long bits of metal through the ceiling to the joists which they then screwed new plasterboard on to. The joins were taped & skimmed and all was good.


It also had the advantage that I was able to paint it the next day rather than wait for plaster to fully dry out.


I've lost about an inch in ceiling height (not noticeable) but had the advantage that the artex was barely touched.

It cost about 10% more than quotes I had to just do a skim coat.

keith969

In a previous house I just had the artex skimmed. It's hardly any added weight.

theageofsteamat26

An old plasterer once told me that when artex is originally plastered on to whatever surface, it never fully sets. And once made wet again, it will most likely delaminate.
So in theory, the wet plaster scimed on, may make the artex delaminate from whatever the artex is stuck to.
However the plasterer in question did scim over artex in the time I knew him.
As a builder myself, I would obviously recommend either removing the artex coating and then scim, or overboard the ceiling with new plasterboard and scim.
Or just get your plasterer to scim over your artex and take a chance that it will stick fine. Worst case scenario is you’ll have to pay to get it taken down again or just board over it.

On I side note, if it does contain asbestos, you will have to make a bit of where you covered up the asbestos for your notes when and if you sell your house.

Hope this helps a little.

Socrat

Thank you all.
I am just a bit concerned about them wanting to take tops off first even if it contains asbestos.
I think I would happily pay 10% more to have new plasterboards on top.

juraj.kecso

You really have three options here:

1. Rip down the ceiling and start fresh - incredibly messy and not necessary unless your ceiling is badly damaged. You also need to consider possible asbestos contamination
2. cover with plasterboard and skim - you will be losing couple of cm of room height
3. skim over - we had that done recently, no problems at all

Soph1988

Hi,


We brought our 1950's house in March 2018 and had an enormous living room (its the equivalent of two large living rooms together) ceiling covered in thick swirly artex. We had it full skimmed for £100 and haven't had any issues. The plasters did shave down a few bits that were pointy, but otherwise its fine. It's obviously not as smooth of a finish as it would be over plasterboard but its certainly not been an issue for us and cost us a great deal less than any other options available.


I was also worried the ceiling wouldn't hold the plaster.... but this hasn't been an issue for us!

ed110220

I would remove the existing ceiling boards and replace with new plasterboard before having that skimmed. That's what I've done (though in my case it's because the existing ceiling was fibreboard). Yes, it's a bit messy but so is skimming. Would much rather it was done properly without the risk of a bodge such as insufficient screws going through the old boards into the joists with overboarding. I've had old and poor condition plasterboard skimmed and found the result wasn't great and felt it would have been worth replacing.

ceredigion

Soph1988 wrote: »

Hi,


We brought our 1950's house in March 2018 and had an enormous living room (its the equivalent of two large living rooms together) ceiling covered in thick swirly artex. We had it full skimmed for £100 and haven't had any issues. The plasters did shave down a few bits that were pointy, but otherwise its fine. It's obviously not as smooth of a finish as it would be over plasterboard but its certainly not been an issue for us and cost us a great deal less than any other options available.


I was also worried the ceiling wouldn't hold the plaster.... but this hasn't been an issue for us!

70/80 M2 then
The plaster would cost £60 before you start.

Debran

The houses on the small estate where I live were built around 1965. All had swirly Artex ceilings, the majority of which have been skimmed over with plaster.

SamCo

Your plasterer should board over it and then re-skim. It will be a much safer and smoother way of doing it. He will prefer to skim over plaster boards as apposed to artex anyway so it's a win win.

May add an extra 12mm tot eh depth of the ceiling but hardly noticeable.