Ceiling Repair & Popcorn Removal · Cambridge

Ceiling Repair and Popcorn Ceiling Removal in Cambridge

Ceilings in Cambridge come in two kinds: sagging plaster in the old towns and sprayed texture in everything built from the sixties to the nineties. Both hide things, which is why they were done.

Cambridge's ceilings tell you the age of the house. In Galt, Preston and old Hespeler it is lath and plaster, often sagging in the centre of the room where the keys have broken, sometimes with a later texture sprayed over to hide the cracks. In the subdivisions from the 1960s through the 1990s — east Galt off Franklin and Dundas, the north end of Hespeler, the streets around Preston's Jacob Hespeler high school — it is drywall with stipple or popcorn applied at the time. Removing texture is now one of the most requested jobs in the trade, and the repairs that come with older ceilings are often done at the same time.

Test first, always

Sprayed and trowelled textures and the joint compound beneath them from before roughly 1990 can contain asbestos, and in a plaster house the later skim coats and patches can too. Nothing is scraped, sanded or cut until a sample has come back from a lab. A positive result means the ceiling is either left in place and covered with a new layer of board, or removed by a licensed abatement contractor under Ontario's asbestos regulation, and we board afterwards. A clean result and the work proceeds.

Removing texture: two routes

• Scrape and skim. Unpainted texture is wetted, scraped off, and the ceiling skimmed to Level 5, sanded and primed. The cleanest result when the board underneath is sound, and the messiest process while it happens: the room is emptied and sealed floor to ceiling.
• Overlay. A new layer of 12.7 mm (1/2 in) board is screwed through the old ceiling into the joists, then taped and finished. The right choice when the texture has been painted and will not scrape cleanly, when the ceiling has been patched repeatedly, when it tested positive and the owner prefers to encapsulate, or when the old ceiling is sagging plaster that an overlay can also re-secure. It drops the ceiling by the board thickness, which matters in a low basement and not in a parlour.

Plaster ceilings

A sagging plaster ceiling in a century home is plaster that has lost its keys to the lath above. If the sag is modest and the plaster is otherwise sound it can be re-secured with plaster washers screwed through to the joists and skimmed, which keeps the original ceiling. If it is coming down in areas, an overlay of board screwed through the plaster into the joists both saves the mess of demolition and holds what remains in place. Full removal is the last resort and is planned as a demolition, with disposal of plaster and lath as their own load.

Drywall ceiling repairs

• Sagging board from failed fasteners, board too thin for the joist spacing or old water: screwed back to the joists if sound, replaced if not.
• Cracks along a joist or truss: re-taped, and on truss ceilings the wall corner is floated so seasonal movement does not reopen it.
• Stains: the leak found and fixed, the board checked for softness, replaced if wet through, stain-blocked before priming.
• Cut-ins from electricians and plumbers, patched and blended.

What to expect

Scrape-and-skim is a multi-day job in an emptied room; an overlay is usually quicker. Either way the room is out of use for the duration and the quote says how long. Painting is separate; a primed, smooth ceiling is the hand-off.

Frequently asked questions

Serving Cambridge and surrounding areas. Contact us for a no-obligation quote specific to your property.