How to get rid of textured walls and ceiling

mcford

Hello all,
I am looking at buying a 4 bed house where all of the walls and ceiling are textured. The house was built in the 70s/80s. My question is, how do I get rid of the textured walls and ceiling?  (I would be paying someone ). Would they just skim over it or will they have to rip out all the textured walls and start again? What are the cost implications? Would skimming over be sufficient? 

Thanks

Penguin_

You can sand them back, that's what I did with my first house, well the walls anyway.

babyblade41

We have just done our whole house,  walls had to come off due to damp so they were all replastered.

one textured ceiling was just too bad and came down and replaced , the others were artex and skimmed,  extremely messy but not too expensive and I'm south east 

FreeBear

Penguin_ said: You can sand them back, that's what I did with my first house, well the walls anyway.

Get the coatings tested for asbestos first. If it comes back positive, do NOT sand the walls/ceiling. Skimming over the top is an acceptable way to encapsulate Artex (with or without asbestos) as long at it is securely adhered to the plaster underneath. You'll probably want to remove skirting boards and architraves before skimming for a neater job.

I've had some success with X-TEX for stripping Artex - It is an effective way of removing the stuff without generating clouds of dust.

Alanp

Use a wallpaper steam stripper to soften , then a scraper to remove

JIL

Our ceilings were all artexed. We were able to plaster over some of them, others got boarded and then plastered. It depended on how deep the artex pattern was. 

DD265

Our ceilings are also artexed. We've just had one ceiling (about 2.5x3.5m) skimmed, has cost ~£100.

MrsStepford

Some of these coatings contained a form of asbestos. We got a product designed to smooth over it. Not perfect but only had one stretch approx 1m wide by 1.5m long. Think two small tubs did it. 

pinkshoes

Penguin_ said:

You can sand them back, that's what I did with my first house, well the walls anyway.

I hope you had them checked for asbestos first?!?!?!?!

OP, do not sand anything until checking for asbestos. If you don’t want to have them checked, or it is checked and comes back as having asbestos in it, then you can have them skimmed over without disturbing it.

We have had nearly all of our rated ceilings skimmed.

If ceilings are high you can also plaster board straight over the top then plaster. 

kdotdotdotdot

Surely the answer depends on what the walls and ceilings are covered in?  If the walls are textured wallpaper, then you should be able to steam and scrape them off.  I'm assuming the ceilings are artex?  Or did someone wallpaper the ceiling too (don't laugh, it happens!).  Or did they artex or plaster the walls?

The biggest nuisance is usually the area over the stairs because it's difficult to reach without a special ladder.  I just paid a man to strip wood-chip wallpaper from the staircase and repaint for me.  

I think we need to know what the 'texture' is on the walls before anyone can give useful advice.

Hannimal

I am not an expert on this so I've no idea. However, I am having a plasterer / decorator come over to do a similar job. It'll take a few days so he suggested charging a day rate and promised he'd get the whole house done in tops 8 days but could be as few as 5. He is charging me £160 per day plus materials.