removing artex ceilings

[nicky883]

Hi all ,
Has anyone recently removed artex ceilings and can advice how much it cost approximately and how it was done ? Was skimming over enought ?
We are buying a propwrty and would like to have them removed as they look bad (in my opinion )
Thank you

[GinnyHendricks]

We've just skimmed over ours apart from one that was flaking off really badly. That one didn't take long at all to peel back at all as damp had got underneath

[QueenStromba]

It will depend on whether or not it has asbestos in it.

[nicky883]

Hi queen it does had asbestos in it we did a search we are told that if left undisturbed is not dangerous so we want to "cover" it basically

[Redhound]

I'd be tempted to leave it. There's Artex all over my house, they even made a feature of it on the walls up the stairs! I don't notice it now.

[Ruhrpott]

We have had one at a time reskimmed as we are doing the room. Just having the office (a lovely fan artex see photo) and landings (a swirly artex) done at the moment. We have been here three years and just have one or two more ceilings to go. The price depends on the size of the room. The cheapest of ours was £100 for the spare room and the most expensive was £600 for the lounge (which is very large and has very high sloping ceilings which needed a scaffolding tower).

[bowsaw]

this is some thing i will get done, only have 2 smooth ceilings and want them all that way, the worst room must have been two rooms as the dreadful pattern has a left and a right side

was going to hide with plasterboard and skim over

[Ruhrpott]

We never plaster boarded them just skimmed over them

[GinnyHendricks]

We haven't plasterboarded either. I was worried about the broken artex room as I thought it was likely to contain asbestos, but we wrote to a specialist company who said the risks were greatly exaggerated from ceilings (obviously asbestos in general is lethal) and unless we were smashing it up into smithereens and snorting the powder we'd be fine. Plaster wasn't worried either

[Fozzleyplum]

We had ours skimmed. If I remember correctly, the chap who did it also rubbed it down first, to flatten out the worst of the relief. It was very successful and not very expensive. However, it did create a lot of dust; I'm asthmatic, and it made me quite ill, so we're not having the remaining ceilings done.

[bowsaw]

these will need board as the last owners must have boiled up chips daily and smoked like chimneys as the ceilings are very sticky and yellow and rather than spend the time up a ladder scrubbing sugar soap solution around ill pay for some extra materials

[nicky883]

Scrubbing it or sanding is not an option because they definately contain white asbestos we had a sample test done. The rooms are small 85 sq meters is the whole house .
I am tempted to do everything at once as we will have an ovelap between the house and the rental place so it will be empty and easir to do .
My budget is 2000 to 2500 for a 3 bed 1 living room 1 kitchen barhroom and the hallway . Thats for whole decoration including the ceilings to do tou think thata enough ? Or its too optimistic ?

[Calmisthemantra]

I've just had my whole house skimmed. Makes such a difference. Was £100 a room and even moved all the furniture etc for me. Took 3 days but they grated it down a bit first - no asbestos! A lot of mess and dust though.

[nicky883]

Calmis may ask which part of england is that ? I would be over the moon of its 100 here .
I anticipate it would be messy thats my i am eager to do t all at once and with no furniture in !

[Chloe94]

I've had it done twice. The house I just sold, had the whole living room diner done... he scraped off artex and plastered he also did skimming of whole room and a bit of bonding for 500, second house - we're having walls completely skimmed and ceilings boarded and skimmed which is costing 2500 this is a 3 bed semi... sorry I can't be more specific! One word of warning if you have ceilings borded you have to replace coving too as it won't look right if left

[Chloe94]

Sorry we haven't had aspestos checks hence why were not risking the scraping method :)

[nicky883]

Thank you chloe 2500 is not unreasonable then for a 3bed semi then . Thats what i was hoping for . I put the details on rated people and it came up woth a budget of 900 t0 3600 which isn't very helpful :)

[Peasandsweetcorn]

We're in SE & recently paid £800 to get the dining room skimmed & the sitting room re-boarded (sitting room wasn't artex but the ceiling needed replacing) and two of the walls re-plastered and then all painted. Our rooms are v large (to give you an idea, they cover the same floor space as two double bedrooms, a single in which you could get a double & two bathrooms both of which have a separate shower & bath in them). This included all materials as well as labour.

[Calmisthemantra]

Nicky I'm in West Midlands. In all they did 7 rooms, 2 hallways, an ensuite and a downstairs loo.

[Ruhrpott]

So some action shots from today. We are still in the middle of having some more ceilings (and walls) done

He paints the ceiling with some pink sandy stuff called betonkontakt and then when it's dry plasters over the swirly artex. This isn't photo of the hall ceiling and some walls plastered today. They were very swirly beforehand. The pink sandy paint is on the right.

[OTheHugeManatee]

If your £2500 includes a painter to do walls and woodwork that plus replastering might be a bit ambitious, at least if the walls need doing too. If just ceilings and a repaint you might be okay especially for a small house as you describe. Get some quotes - without people seeing the property it's impossible to say really.

[ftb882]

Well i have been quoted 3000 plis 1000 materials not including vat

[OTheHugeManatee]

How many ceilings/rooms is that, ftb? If it's several and/or there are awkward bits to take into account £4K might be quite reasonable.

For comparison, I recently paid £2,350 (no vat) for two rooms and a boot room. They are largish rooms, total around 65 square metres, with a lot of boxing in of pipes, plastering round curves, chimney breasts, bay windows, alcoves, filling in holes, skimming artex and all kinds of other faffery and it took two men a week to complete. I trust our plasterer 100% on the prices he charges. I'm Beds/Cambs border if that makes any difference.

[ftb882]

I am new to uk so these prices seem extraordinary to me ! The whole house is 85sq m we want all the cailings to be plastered i guess is reasonable then compared to your quote we are in hamphsire

[ftb882]

Just to clarify the artex is shallow and there are no obstacles like chimneys erc in the house

[mrsmortis]

We paid 1600 for the whole ceiling and the plaster on the top 18 inches of the wall to be removed (lathe and plaster) from one room due to asbestos in the artex (who artexes down a wall?). It's quite a big room and not square because of the chimney breast. That was without reinstatement. I can't remember what we paid for that.