Artex Removal in Renfrew & Surrounding Areas

What artex removal is, and when you need it

Artex is the textured finish on most ceilings put up between the sixties and the eighties, in swirls, stipple, combed patterns or a heavy stucco. People want it flat, and getting it flat is straightforward. How you get there is the part worth asking about.

Artex of that age can contain a small amount of asbestos in the mix. That is not a reason to panic and it is a very good reason not to attack it with a scraper or a sander. The method that avoids the question entirely is to leave it where it is and cover it, which is what we do.

Covering rather than scraping

There are two ways to a flat ceiling. Overboarding fixes new plasterboard through the old ceiling into the joists and the skim goes on that. Skimming over bonds a coat straight onto the texture after it has been prepared and treated.

Which one suits depends on how heavy the texture is and how much height the room can give up. A heavy stucco with deep peaks is an overboarding job; a light stipple will take a skim over the top.

Cracks, and dealing with them first

An Artex ceiling of that age has usually been cracking quietly under the pattern, and the texture hides it. Once the ceiling is flat, any crack that is still live comes straight back through the new finish.

So the cracks get taped before anything else happens. The living room in our work section shows the taping stage on the old textured ceiling, before a trowel went near it.

Walls as well as ceilings

Heavy texture is not only a ceiling problem. The hallway in our work section had it on every wall, which is the hardest place to make flat because the light runs the length of the hall and shows everything.

Walls take the same approach: prepare, tape what is moving, and skim through in one go so there is no join.