Out damn spot!
June 3, 2023 1:28 PM Subscribe
The AC failed while I was traveling during a particularly humid time which led to mold breaking out in the ceiling in two rooms. The remediation plan has been thrown off by asbestos popcorn ceiling. Details within.
The initial remediation plan was to encapsulate the affected areas and paint over them. Simple enough.
Then the asbestos report for the popcorn ceiling (1968) came back positive and the company I'd been working with is not certified to work with it.
They've proposed two possibilities.
1. Hire an asbestos company to remove the popcorn ceiling, they come in and encapsulate it, and then paint it.
2. Encapsulate it as-is (which they say won't disturb the asbestos) and add an entire new layer of drywall underneath it.
The second seems awfully fiddly - there's all kind of molding, ceiling lighting, etc. that would have to be worked around or left with a sloppy look.
It seems like a reasonable third option would be to have the asbestos certified company remove the drywall entirely and replace it. This cuts the mold-only company out of the profit loop, which is why they may not have presented it as an option.
In my mind this would also be good to make sure there's no mold above the ceiling below the attic. There's no sign of an issue in the attic (both in terms of mold and leaks that might have caused the outbreak) but it would give a little surety. It also seems like once I'm going to the expense of having asbestos certified professionals coming in, rather than grinding down dangerous popcorn that I'm not fond of to begin with and sealing mold into the existing drywall, that just replacing it with known good drywall would be the way to go.
I've reached out to the local asbestos companies for a quote but haven't heard back yet and figured I'd check the hive mind for anyone with first-person experience with this.
The initial remediation plan was to encapsulate the affected areas and paint over them. Simple enough.
Then the asbestos report for the popcorn ceiling (1968) came back positive and the company I'd been working with is not certified to work with it.
They've proposed two possibilities.
1. Hire an asbestos company to remove the popcorn ceiling, they come in and encapsulate it, and then paint it.
2. Encapsulate it as-is (which they say won't disturb the asbestos) and add an entire new layer of drywall underneath it.
The second seems awfully fiddly - there's all kind of molding, ceiling lighting, etc. that would have to be worked around or left with a sloppy look.
It seems like a reasonable third option would be to have the asbestos certified company remove the drywall entirely and replace it. This cuts the mold-only company out of the profit loop, which is why they may not have presented it as an option.
In my mind this would also be good to make sure there's no mold above the ceiling below the attic. There's no sign of an issue in the attic (both in terms of mold and leaks that might have caused the outbreak) but it would give a little surety. It also seems like once I'm going to the expense of having asbestos certified professionals coming in, rather than grinding down dangerous popcorn that I'm not fond of to begin with and sealing mold into the existing drywall, that just replacing it with known good drywall would be the way to go.
I've reached out to the local asbestos companies for a quote but haven't heard back yet and figured I'd check the hive mind for anyone with first-person experience with this.
In my area, popcorn ceilings are universally asbestos-contaminated so, while we don't have mold problems, I have dealt with the asbestos issue.
I did it the first way, while my neighbor did it the second way.
The asbestos removal process is a wet "scraping" type of process, so there will not be any dangerous dust generated, but your house will get damp so be prepared to air it out once the process is complete. Once the specialists were done, I was left with a completely bare ceiling of 1959 drywall, which I then had fixed up and repainted by regular drywall guys. In my case they did not replace the drywall because above it was blown-in insulation; if they removed drywall the insulation would fall into the house and be its own type of nightmare.
My neighbor simply hung new drywall directly against the asbestos popcorn, and used little adapter dealies to handle the difference in ceiling thickness (re: lights, etc).
Both ways worked fine, have been fine for a number of years at this point, but I'm happier having paperwork showing that the asbestos in my house has been professionally removed.
If you're worried about the attic, you could get a professional to inspect that separately before you do any work, then you'll know if you need to care about attic leaks or the like before you make your choices.
posted by aramaic at 2:00 PM on June 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I did it the first way, while my neighbor did it the second way.
The asbestos removal process is a wet "scraping" type of process, so there will not be any dangerous dust generated, but your house will get damp so be prepared to air it out once the process is complete. Once the specialists were done, I was left with a completely bare ceiling of 1959 drywall, which I then had fixed up and repainted by regular drywall guys. In my case they did not replace the drywall because above it was blown-in insulation; if they removed drywall the insulation would fall into the house and be its own type of nightmare.
My neighbor simply hung new drywall directly against the asbestos popcorn, and used little adapter dealies to handle the difference in ceiling thickness (re: lights, etc).
Both ways worked fine, have been fine for a number of years at this point, but I'm happier having paperwork showing that the asbestos in my house has been professionally removed.
If you're worried about the attic, you could get a professional to inspect that separately before you do any work, then you'll know if you need to care about attic leaks or the like before you make your choices.
posted by aramaic at 2:00 PM on June 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Whats the ceiling height? Lowering an 8ft ceiling os going to be claustrophobic, but if it's 11ftvor higher you may not even notice the "encapsulation"
posted by TheAdamist at 6:37 PM on June 3, 2023
posted by TheAdamist at 6:37 PM on June 3, 2023
Mold and asbestos? Worth it to fully remove both if you can.
posted by freethefeet at 7:45 PM on June 3, 2023
posted by freethefeet at 7:45 PM on June 3, 2023
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Additionally, if they pull the drywall out in pieces it will probably cause less asbestos dust to be generated vs. stripping the popcorn off the entire existing ceiling. (I mean, presumably with pros they are controlling and containing the dust, but I'd rather see the drywall coming out in big squares vs chipping coating off of it or laminating over it.)
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 1:37 PM on June 3, 2023