How does acoustic (popcorn) ceiling removal work?  What steps are involved in the process?  How do you protect my home? 

People who make the decision to get the acoustic ceiling removed in their home often ask these questions.  With more than 30 years of experience, System 1 has fine-tuned the process of acoustic ceiling removal giving our customers the best value and the best product in the acoustic (popcorn) ceiling removal business.  Upon entering your home we apply the following steps to ensure the utmost in quality, cleanliness and professionalism when removing your acoustic ceiling.

Prior to any work we do in the home we ask the homewoners to remove any small breakables off the tops of tables, dressers and chairs.  The big furniture can stay in the home, but all the little things should be secure and out of the way. 

The big bulky pieces of furniture, things like china cabinets, we don’t move.  The only things we move are tables/chairs and similar items away from the middle of the room so we can have space to work. 

A common misconception many homeowners have is they think we want all the large pieces of furniture in the center of the room, like when you paint the wall, but we want it on the sides.  It’s easier for us to drape the protective plastice over the furniture more effectively when it is on the sides rather than in the middle.  Also, we need space in the middle of the room to work.  It’s easy for us to reach the corners over the large pieces of furniture when the furniture is on the sides of the room. 

If you have the type of home with a big back yard and a patio, we move as much stuff as we can onto the patio.  In an apartment or condo where that may not be possible we move those items into the kitchen since typically there is no acoustic (popcorn) ceiling in the kitchen.

After the furnitures is properly placed, we lay extremely thick plastic along the entire surface of the floor.  The thick plastic covers the floor and goes up the wall two to three feet around the perimeter of the room.  We then lay thin plastic covering the area from the ceiling to the floor along the wall.  A typical ceiling is 8 feet.  The plastic we use from the ceiling is 12 feet long giving your home an extra 6 feet of protection.  

In order to make a mess, someone would have to physically pick up the plastic from the wall and throw the excess acoustic material behind the plastic.  We have a failproof plan to ensure no mess is ever left behind one of our homes.

After we lay the plastic, we look for ceiling fans and light fixtures.  Many companies fail to remove the acoustic (popcorn) ceiling from the areas covered by ceiling fans and light fixtures, but we put in the extra effort to make sure all the acoustic is removed from the interior of your home.  

The entire home is encapsulated in plastic from top to bottom.  The only thing that’s exposed is the ceiling.  System 1 President, Richard McKinnon said, “We could walk in there with a firehouse and go crazy and nothing would get damaged because it’s completely and thoroughly wrapped in plastic.  Keeping our customers’ homes protected is our top priority.”

We come in with a light-duty hose and we mist some water on the acoustic to make the material wet and soft so there is no airborn dust or particles.  This makes it easier to take off the acoustic material cleanly.  

A lot of companies spray too much water which leaves a lot of residue and results in an unsatisfactory final product.  We wet it just enough to make sure it absorbs all of the water like a sponge, but doesn’t wet the dry wall underneath it. 

After Removing the Acoustic, We Apply Texture to Your New Ceiling

The acoustic ceiling turns into a type of sludge, like “cottage cheese.”  We scrape all of the acoustic extremely clean to where all you see is clean drywall, seams and nail holes.  We coat all of the seams and nail holes.  If there are bad tape joints, we fix them with mesh tape so they’re strong and will never go bad. 

We coat the ceiling so that it is “as smooth as glass” using a fast drying light weight compound made for coating joints and after that we coat it again.  This is something that only our company does.  Other companies don’t do this process because it’s like adding another 20 % more labor to the job . . . another 2 hours.  We always do it.  This is one of the reasons we’re the best.  Our attention to detail and our pursuit of perfection have made our brand synonymous with excellence.  

Depending on the type of texture the customer chooses we either apply a texture by hand or spray a texture.  Our most popular texture is “Light Cloud” which we apply by hand.  Applying texture is basically an art form.  When we complete a project, “It truly looks like you had an artist come in and smooth your ceilings out,”  Richard said.  All of the texturing we do is the same price so customers get our variety of skills and talents and they get them at the same price.

Call Richard McKinnon for a free estimate – (800) 698 – 4410.

System 1 has removed acoustic (popcorn) ceilings and painted homes in Phillips Ranch, Pomona, Cerritos, Cypress, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Los Alamitos, Norco, Alta Loma, Mira Loma and 100 more cities across Southern California for the past 30 years.