Cottage cheese ceiling

[SpottyFish]

My husband and I recently purchased a condo with the ever-dreaded cottage cheese ceiling. Since we're first time home buyers, we were kind of oblivious to the fact that many cottage cheese ceilings contain asbestos.

Our condo was built in 1969. Obviously, we plan on having flakes from the ceiling tested for asbestos. If the tests come back negative, then we'll remove the texturing ourselves. If it's positive (which I'm hoping it's not), we'll pay a certified asbestos removal company to do it....though we're still kind of on the fence over having it removed or leaving it. Depends on if the cost of removing will be reflected in the appreciation through not having popcorn textured ceilings.

My questions are:

1) what are the chances that the ceiling contains asbestos
2) What would be the approximate cost to have professionals remove the ceiling texture if there is asbestos (approx 1000 sq ft).

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I'm a little paranoid about this.

Thanks!

[HayZee518]

Asbestos abatement of any large proportion is very expensive! For a ceiling of this size, pretty much the whole room will need to be sealed with 6 mil poly in three layers. The contractor will have to construct an air lock and change room for his crew - all made out of duct tape and poly. He'll need to provide a positive pressure machine with hepa filters. Next he'll need to find a disposal site that will take the friable products. $22,000 is a ballpark figure.
I put up a popcorn ceiling in one of my houses and the compund was balled up cellulose.

[SpottyFish]

Yikes, I guess I better just cross my fingers and really hope it doesn't have asbestos in it.

[plasterguy]

You have several options besides removal if you find that your "cottage cheese" (aka popcorn) ceiling texture contains asbestos.

You can lock it in place by spray painting the ceiling(s) with a couple good coats of white latex or acrylic paint. Hiring a painting contractor to do this would be a LOT cheaper than removal costs. Painting will hold the texture in place pretty well. If you have to brush away cobwebs once in a while (a constant housecleaning chore in Oregon), use a feather duster and be gentle.

Or, you could also hire a drywall contractor to come in and spray a heavy coat of regular texture compound over the rough ceiling. It won't change the ceiling appearance that much, but like paint will lock the old texture in place and re-whiten the ceilings. I have done both the paint and the spray texture options for clients, and each works well.