I'm going to rid of vermiculate celling in my old unit and I have classic set of options:
1. Scrap, patch, sand and paint, $$$
2. False ceiling, $$
3. Paint it, $
Looks like I will proceed with option 3 as less hassle. I read a couple of threads here and Whirlpool where folks recommend Durobond paint. I got a quote ~$750 for Durobond 45L, meanwhile Bunnings offers 45L for $300. Just curious if someone had an experience with popcorn ceilings painting? Is Durobond really worth it?
With false ceiling you gain acoustic insulation and you can install downlights.
Paint should sprayed on, if you go down that path. I’d pay someone to do it properly.
you gain acoustic insulation
That's supposed to be the point of popcorn ceilings as well.
Painting is a disaster, that crap just sucks up paint.
You can get them resurfaced, not sure what they actually do. Slap plaster or something all over it I guess.
I looked into doing the same thing a while back. There’s lots of disaster stories like the surface absorbs so much paint it gets heavy and falls off.
What made me decide to leave it alone was I went to a unit that had painted it and it looks terrible.
Some companies will render over the top of it which I think is a lot cheaper than a suspended ceiling
Another issue with plasterboard on top of the popcorn ceiling is reduced height of ceiling. There's some regulations concerning that along with fire safety rules. There's too much involved especially with strata laws as well.
Read somewhere painting over it was estimated to be about 80L to coat a 70 sq m property and still wasn't right.
I would strongly advice against "simply" painting it. Speak to come professionals about what your options are here. I looked at something similar years ago and the advice seemed to centre on installing plaster sheets over the vermiculite and go from there.
We scraped ours so it was a bit flatter, then painted. Was a hell of a job as even with a sealer it just sucks paint. You need a really long nap roller as well which is tiring to work with. The end result is better but not perfect.
If you are living in the apartment long term then I would just pay for either a false ceiling to be put in (if you have the ceiling height to support this as building regs require at least 2400mm in room height post false ceiling install), or a skim coat to be put on (costs about $3k for your average 2 bed apartment).
Going through this process now part of a kitchen had water leak damage above, the safest way to paint this is with an airless sprayer so it doesn't disturb the vermiculite as much as slapping a thick roller nap, an air sprayer will get inside those granules better and quicker than using a thick roller nap which will lead to granules falling off and sticking to the nap roller, I would recommend using an oil-based primer-sealer water-based, or the Eurobond stuff as it sticks to the ceiling vermiculite particles, only thing is ceiling paint is thick so you may face the issue of the heaviness of the primer-sealer then the paint you'll have to put on later may make it heavy and fall off. has any gained doing this? Has anyone used the Durobond product as there are no reviews on this, as I was told it is a thick 3-in-1 sealer, primer, stainer, and paint all in one
The vermiculite is a fire barrier so you can't scrape it off. This would breach strata by laws.
Also it could have asbestos in it so I wouldn't be touching it without sending a sample to a lab for testing first.