ceiling tiles

[jim.arnold]

house has polystyrene ceiling tiles - apparently to hide "poor ceilings" aparently some cracks but nothing major - or so I'm told by previous owner

What options do I have other than

1) leave them 2) remove and Artex 3) replace with some other lightweight tile

I'm assuming the ceilings are not too bad they are lath and plaster but seem sound

Any other ideas ?

[Chris J Dixon]

They may be sound, but the tile adhesive will almost certainly be a problem to remove. If it really isn't too bad, you could use either a plain lining paper, or a textured paper, but papering ceilings is never a fun job.

I have in the past used acoustic tiles for a ceiling which had polystyrene tiles (with very hard adhesive) on top of artex, but they were quite expensive - actually pretty close to what a skim would have cost.

As part of a kitchen refit, I am now having it skimmed.

Chris

[mark.hannah]

I have just done this in my living room - took off the tiles and had the ceiling skimmed. I was lucky too - the tiles just fell off with a bit of encouragment from a scraper.

Mark.

[John]

Same here, although not in my house but that of a relative. The tiles appeared to be stuck with wallpaper paste so came of very easily and quite quickly. I do not know wht these tiles were put on as the ceilings underneath were not showing any signs of cracking etc. I suppose it was the 'latest fad' in the 70's though.

HTH

John

[Dan Smithers]

Remove them and see what you're left with. Previously I've scraped the glue off with a metal scraper. Steam stripper can help.

I've scraped artex off the same way.

You will probably need to line the ceiling which is quite possible. Set up a couple of scaffold boards on trestles if you can.

dan

[Chris J Dixon]

A handy tool to use for the initial removal is a garden hoe. You don't need steps, and you are at arm's length from the falling debris.

Chris

[Seri]

I found a heat gun worked quite well on the adhesive mine were held up with.

[John]

I think that in the early days of polystyrene tiles the adhesive was very hard - later the recommendation was to use wallpaper adhesive. I guess this is the one that is easy to remove.

[decoraids]

Hi Jim...

You can paste these tiles directly to your old Polystyrene Tiles and get a fast fast face lift of your ceiling, they are easy fast and fun.. Take a look at

Best Regards Hardik Sheth, India.