Just been to look at a house, which is up for sale, The first thing that greets you is every ceiling is covered with polystyrene tiles including one wall in one of the bed rooms. Any one out there tried to remove theses tiles. Or is it a question of over plaster boarding and skim ceiling and try to remove tiles from wall. then skim over.
including one
ceiling and
The conventional way of fixing them was five dabs of adhesive ( each corner plus the middle). If the ceiling had previously been painted they will probably come down pretty easily with a paint scraper, as the paint pulls away from the plaster. If it is old enough to have been painted with distemper they will practically fall away.
AWEM
they'll be a doddle to remove, however they where the fashion at one time but on the other hand these tiles are like wallpaper they can hide a multitude of sins.
Personally, I'd rip them all off no matter the mess, then start afresh with new plaster surfaces. Messy and time consuming job at the start, but when you compare it to patching and matching, and the length of time it last after being done properly. Then it does work out easier, and maybe cheaper, to rip out and start again.
They're horrible things.
They'll come off easy enough, but if they were fixed by dabs of rubber adhesive it's the very devil. It always seems to show through emulsion, unless you line the ceiling.
Of course it's also possible they're hiding something nasty.
The glue comes of with a heat gun and a scraper, but it's still hard work and hell on the neck.
I've just removed some in a flat that I'm refurbishing. The tiles came away easily leaving the glue. I soaked the glue with water on a sponge - and after leaving for a while to soak in it scraped off very easily - I was pleasantly surprised to find it left an almost perfect surface that could be painted over without skimming first. Without the soaking it's like stabbing at rock. Hope it works.
Hugh
I agree.
I agree - and we onceput them up :-(
Mary
My Mum's next door neighbour took well over a week's solid scraping to remove the ceiling tiles in their house ! certainlay not "a doddle"
We didn't even attempt it on our plaster/lath ceilings, just had 'em boarded & skimmed. (presuming the ceiling rafters are man enough for the job.) which on a 70's build I would doubt looking at the corner cutting in our current re-furb. project.
Use a match ;-)
(For the humour-impaired: DO NOT use a match.)
Many years ago as a teenager, I put these up in my bedroom in my parents house. However, budding diyer as I was even back then, I did it properly, fully glueing the backs of the tiles. More recently, my parents went for a major redecoration of my former bedroom (not DIY). The builder tried to prise one or two tiles off, and quickly decided it was faster/cheaper to bring down all the plasterboard, fit new, and reskim.
A pump-up sprayer filled with petrol will dissolve the polystyrene, and it can then be mopped up off the floor.
Or, combined with the last one, it's even more effective.
Thanks to all who took time to reply. From the suggestion given, it looks like either strip them off and then soaking the adhesive with water or leave on and board over and skim. If I remember right the adhesive was water based.
Cant afford the petrol. Although it seem practical and I like your sense of humour.LOL
Sounds like they were fixed with a water soluble glue. You were very lucky. ;-)
This is always a good fallback position in any DIY
"When in doubt, rip it (all) out."
I have generally found in all things from car repairs to upgrading houses, that removeing anything that is a pain completely and replacing with new nmaterials, is quicker, cheaper and more staisfactory.
People used to stick them up with normal wall paper paste. With these it's just a case of scraping them off and removing any remnants with a steam stripper.
Then the glue companies invented "Polystyrene tile adhesive" which is a b*gger to remove.
sponix
Use a garden hoe to get the bulk of them off. Your arms will still be useable the next day if you do...
Anthony
Some respondents imply that steam or water will only remove tiles that were stuck on with wallpaper paste or something similar.
My house had some poly tiles stuck to one ceiling. I removed the bulk of them mechanically with a paint scraper. Each tile was stuck to the ceiling with five blobs of glue. The type of glue was unknown, but I would assume it was something sold as a poly tile adhesive.
I was delighted to discover that a steam wallpaper stripper rapidly softened the adhesive and it was possible to entirely remove it with a paint scraper.
Once the glue was removed, it only took a couple of coats of paint to produce a flawless ceiling.
I had initially been resigned to replacing or re-plastering that ceiling, but was surprised at just how cleanly the adhesive could be removed.
The worst type was some form of rubber adhesive, and nothing I tried - including steam would remove it easily. Of course, if it was on some form of soluble paint like distemper, that may have given way to the steam.
Obviously not the stuff they used in my dining room then - scraping pulled off chunks of plaster, steaming didn't touch it. I eventually attached a hot air gun and a scraper to a length of 2x1, which did the job but the fumes were nasty and wearing a respirator made it really uncomfortable even at a distance - I needed to get quite a lot of heat into the plaster and it soon got too hot to be comfortable working near it. Maybe I'll try using a big fan to keep the air clear, and finish it off when the weather cools down.
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