The traditional method of removing popcorn ceilings is the one shown in the picture. Basically the ceiling is sprayed with water, allowed to soak for awhile and then you scrape it off the ceiling. You end up with a large mess on the floor. It gets into everything and takes time to clean up afterword. There are several other approaches that we have come across which will save you both time and money if you hire someone to do this work for you.
Removing Popcorn Ceilings – Shop Vac
One method is to spray the ceiling lightly with water as before, but then use a shop vac while you are scraping the ceiling. Take a 6 inch scraper or spackle knife and tape it to your shop vac as shown in the picture. As you scrape the ceiling everything is sucked into the shop vac. Clean up is much easier and all you need to do is empty the contents of the shop vac into a garbage bag.
Make sure that the scraper width is narrower than the width of the shop vac wand. This will avoid any of the popcorn material going onto the floor. Your removal and cleanup time will be shorter by hours and there will be no mess on the floor to clean up! Well at least there will be less mess to clean up after you are done.
These jobs can be completed by professionals in much less time than you will take, but is it worth it. You can save hundreds of dollars doing lots of jobs like this one yourself.
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