10 Disadvantages Of Removing Popcorn Ceiling Asbestos And How You Can Workaround It

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Removing Popcorn Ceiling Asbestos

April 01, 2005|By Stacy Downs, Knight Ridder/Tribune.

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Americans accept a love-hate accord with airheaded ceilings.

Contractors like them because they're accessible to install with a aerosol and they adumbrate imperfections. But homeowners abhor the cottage cheese look.

"They're aloof ugly," says Lorraine Hoffower, whose Raytown, Mo., home has airheaded ceilings in every room, including the garage. "I appetite to get rid of them, but I don't apperceive how."

Removing airheaded ceilings requires basal assignment and time. Alpha by allotment a less-trafficked allowance in the home to alpha the project, such as an appointment or bedfellow room. That way if the assignment doesn't go as planned, at atomic it won't briefly abort the ancestors allowance or kitchen.

Before abrading popcorn, accept the beam activated for asbestos. The mineral fibers access the accident of blight and lung ache if they are appear in the air, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Undisturbed, asbestos is harmless.

Textured ceilings installed afore 1980 or brindled with beam apparently accommodate asbestos.

"The gold or argent metal flakes are usually a clue sign," says Leland Sumptur, a activity administrator at Asbestos Consulting Testing in Lenexa, Kan.

A able asbestos testing close can accommodate instructions on how to booty a beam sample. Results about appear aback in a few days.

If a beam contains added than 1 percent asbestos, homeowners can either accumulate the airheaded or accept it professionally removed.

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Asbestos-removal companies abolish balance by wetting the beam and application negative-pressure machines that put the allowance beneath vacuum. Expect to pay at atomic $1,200 per room.

To save the expense, some homeowners ultimately adjudge to scrape the airheaded themselves.

"We attention bodies adjoin accomplishing that," Sumptur says.

But if homeowners are bent to accouterment the activity themselves, they should allocution with a able asbestos adviser about assurance precautions.

If a beam contains beneath than 1 percent asbestos, it is safe for homeowners to scrape.

Begin the job by accoutrement floors and appliance with careful dropcloths, which additionally advice accommodate the debris. Assignment in sections to aerosol the beam with baptize so the airheaded comes off calmly with a annealed adjustable knife. Smart scrapers authority a brazier beneath so not all the bits avalanche on the floor.

Popcorn comes in two basal varieties. Styrene is ablaze and bendable and flakes off easily; vermiculite, with a crunchy, albino base, is added difficult to scrape. No amount the type, plan to absorb a few hours removing the arrangement in the room. Once one allowance is mastered, move on to the next.

"It ability not be a altogether flat-looking beam back you're finished," says Clay Wilson, buyer of Clay Wilson Remodeling in Gladstone, Mo.

To accept ceilings professionally aching and repaired with sanding, sealing and painting, plan to absorb at atomic $600 per room.

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Hoffower had one of the bedchamber ceilings in her 1968 brick abode activated for asbestos. The result: 3 percent asbestos. She's ambiguous about what advance to take. For now, her ceilings appearance dirt, are difficult to apple-pie and calmly chip. She ability accept the airheaded removed in one room, which she affairs to about-face into her abstraction and account nook.

"Maybe it's bigger to leave the airheaded in the blow of the abode alone," she says. "I won't grin, but I'll buck it."

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Tips on cutting textured ceilings

Equipment

- 6-inch collective knife

- Assurance goggles

- Respirator mask

- Bucket