Artex, artex everywhere...

[TheCokeMachine]

I've made an offer on a house, but it is covered from top to bottom in Artex...walls and ceilings. The house is slightly cheaper than other houses in the area, I'm assuming this is due to the artex.

I've done a quick google and if Artex is pre year 2000 (which I'm certain it is) then it probably contains white asbestos.

Could I just get a plasterer out to skim over it - it probably has about 10 layers of silk paint on it...and is the swirly kind not the terrible spikey stuff.

Has anyone dealt with old Artex, what did you do? I'd be scared that if we just skimmed it the whole skim would just fall off in a sheet if not done properly?

I believe you can just get it skimmed. I had the artex ceilings in a previous house skimmed, and that would have been pre 2000 artex because I bought the house not long after that. The man didn't say anything about the silk paint affecting it - although to be honest I don't know if he did anything special to prep it.

If you are getting someone in to do it though they will advise you of what needs to be done in that respect. In a nutshell though I would think skimming will be fine!

Asbestos is only a problem if you start removing it and disturbing the dust. In that case you need to have it tested and if asbestos is found, a specialist company needs to remove it.

Oh and my DB lives in that house now and the plaster is still on the ceiling

Our house was similar when we moved in. The hallway was like the caves of Drach, with long spikes, so there was no chance of skimming over. We bought some of that special remover. It was such hard work - we would never do that again.

Upstairs we had a complete new ceiling as we were having a new bedroom anyway.

We had exactly the same problem when we bought our house. We had the entire house skimmed - it took just under a week, cost about two grand. It then took 3 weeks to dry and another 3 weeks for me to paint the entire place. We rented somewhere else as there was a lot of work to be done! But it looks fantastic now!!

Perfect, it sounds as though I can just get the place skimmed then - which is much less work than I was expecting. Thanks!