Stucco Ceiling Removal in Markham, ON

Stucco ceiling removal in Markham means scraping the sprayed texture off wet inside a sealed room and leaving a flat, sealed, painted ceiling behind. We do it for homeowners in Thornhill, Milliken Mills, Unionville and Markham Village whose houses were renovated everywhere except overhead. By the end of the job you have a ceiling that reads as one plane in afternoon light and a lab report that answered the asbestos question before the first scrape.

What Stucco Ceiling Removal Involves

After the lab clears the ceiling, we empty or wrap the room and sheet it in poly to the door frames. We mist the stucco in sections, wait for it to soften, and scrape it off in wet sheets onto the poly while a filtration unit runs. Every Markham competitor page we have read describes sanding the texture off. We scrape it wet because wet texture does not go airborne and the drywall paper underneath survives.

The exposed drywall shows every taped joint and screw dimple the texture was hiding. We re-tape what has failed, set the screws, apply two skim coats, and sand with dust extraction. Then drywall sealer, two coats of flat ceiling paint, poly down, vacuum, wipe, fixtures back up.

When You Need It Removed Rather Than Covered

You have three choices with a stucco ceiling. Painting it seals the texture in place, and when you remove it later we have to float it, which costs more than scraping it now. Boarding over it adds the weight of a second ceiling to 1970s joists, lowers the room by the thickness of the board, and leaves the old texture sealed above for the next owner to discover. Removal ends the problem, and it holds up when a buyer's inspector asks what is up there.

What Ontario's Asbestos Regulation Means for Your Ceiling

Ontario Regulation (343) 947-5029 counts material with 0.5 percent asbestos or more by dry weight as asbestos-containing, and it classes removal of more than one square metre of friable material as Type 3 work, which needs Ministry-trained workers and notice to an inspector. A whole ceiling is more than one square metre.

The regulation exempts you if you scrape your own ceiling in a home you occupy; it does not exempt a contractor you hire. We are not a Type 3 abatement contractor, so a positive sample sends the scrape to a licensed abatement firm, and we return after clearance to skim and paint.

What Affects the Price

Square footage sets the base. Painted stucco gets floated instead of scraped (see stipple ceiling removal) and costs more per foot. Two-storey foyers, cathedral family rooms and rooms with many fixtures take longer. Drywall repair adds a line when the ceiling needs it, and so does a positive sample. The popcorn ceiling removal page goes through each of these in more detail, and the ceiling painting page covers the pot-light openings we cut before the skim.