What kind of textured ceiling is this? Removing it.

[mjruschak]

Hello Everyone,

I have a question about the ceiling in my garage. My house was built in 1977 and we have an attached 2 car garage. We hate the current ceiling. It is some sort of popcorn ceiling but I am not absolutely certain. The rest of the house has normal flat ceilings.

Here are the visuals.


If it is popcorn how thick should it be? Notice the third picture how I took more off because there was a crack in the stuff. I may have to thin coat it after i remove the ceiling.

Thanks

Mike

[HayZee518]

type of ceiling finish

a popcorn ceiling looks like small pebbles throughout the compound or paint. in your case it looks like after the skim coat they used a sponge or wadded up newspaper to impress a design in the wet compound then painted a flat white.
you mentioned taking down the ceiling??
well, then I wouldn't worry about the ceiling. you'll compound the joints with paper tape and feather out the edges.

[mjruschak]

a popcorn ceiling looks like small pebbles throughout the compound or paint. in your case it looks like after the skim coat they used a sponge or wadded up newspaper to impress a design in the wet compound then painted a flat white.
you mentioned taking down the ceiling??
well, then I wouldn't worry about the ceiling. you'll compound the joints with paper tape and feather out the edges.

Great this was the answer I was hoping for. So in theory I can just wet it down and scrape off the pattern and then skim coat as needed to finish areas? This way I get a flatter look and don't need to worry about pieces falling on the floor all the time.

[pushkins]

The reason it's falling off is because of the lack of insulation above, the moisture builds up in the garage and what is the one thing drywall hates...yup moisture.
Basically what you have on the ceiling is drywall compound (Spackle..... call it what you like). The texture can be removed by spraying on a small amount of water with a pressure sprayer and then once it's loose gently scrapping it off, Care needs to be taken to make sure you don;t apply too much water that you don't damage the paper on the drywall.

[mjruschak]

The reason it's falling off is because of the lack of insulation above, the moisture builds up in the garage and what is the one thing drywall hates...yup moisture.
Basically what you have on the ceiling is drywall compound (Spackle..... call it what you like). The texture can be removed by spraying on a small amount of water with a pressure sprayer and then once it's loose gently scrapping it off, Care needs to be taken to make sure you don;t apply too much water that you don't damage the paper on the drywall.

This is a good point about the insulation. Especially since the house was built in 77. Regretably I don't have an access door to the attic space and now I am wondering if it would make sense to build in an access door to the attic space as well. I don't really need to put a ladder and all that but perhaps just a square door opening like I have in my house to access the attic. We put 6" more insulation up there after we moved in. At least then i have access to the space if something happens in the garage. I also noticed there is no soffit vents on the garage roof for some strange reason and no outgoing vent. I already fixed ventilation issues in the attic space in the house. We put in baffles to keep insulation from blocking the vents and added box vents for now. When I get a new roof I will go with a ridge vent.

What are your thoughts on this?

[pushkins]

Ventilation is an absolute must for any attic space, remember though for any exit space there must be the same entrance space, so if you create 5 square feet of ridge vent space then you must have 5 square feet of soffit vents or the like. Ideally there should be soffit vents and a ridge vent that way air is dragged in down low and sucked out up high in the attic space.
Code says 1:300 that means for every 300 square feet of attic space there should be 1 square foot of ventilation ( 1 in and 1 out).
Without ventilation now matter how much insulation you put in it will allow the drywall issues your seeing.

[HayZee518]

ridge vent

when you install a ridge vent, take your skill saw and saw a gap 2 inches on both sides of the ridge pole. remove the sheathing only. your ridge vent will overlap the ridge about four inches either side and will allow air to travel upward and out.
if your soffets are solid, use that perforated plastic stuff to create air flow into the enclosed space. use a sawz-all to cut out the solid wood and frame in the soffet material.
if you have the room above your existing attic access, cut a hole in between the garage rafters that naturally come down inside your house attic, enough so you can squeeze into it for blowing in insulation

[mjruschak]

Well I finally skim coated and scraped the ceiling. Took 3 days to complete. Finished it last night after work and it felt so good. Made the space look bigger. Going to put in the soffits and stuff this weekend. Then I have to decide on a garage wall color. Probably a light tan or grey. Will beat the yellow that it was painted in 1977.