San Antonio Expert Drywall 830-429-4502
Emptied living room prepared for ceiling work, clear plastic sheeting taped up the walls and laid across the floor, the doorway at one side closed off behind a zippered sheet, a ceiling supply vent taped over and two step ladders standing open under a bare flat white ceiling

Popcorn Ceiling Removal in San Antonio, TX, Tested First and Finished Flat

Taking the popcorn off your ceiling is the fast part. Skimming what's underneath flat and sanding it is the day's work, and that's what leaves it ready for paint.

Call Us Now! 830-429-4502Get a FREE Quote Today!
Emptied living room prepared for ceiling work, clear plastic sheeting taped up the walls and laid across the floor, the doorway at one side closed off behind a zippered sheet, a ceiling supply vent taped over and two step ladders standing open under a bare flat white ceiling

What Popcorn Ceiling Removal Costs in San Antonio

A popcorn ceiling is two jobs stacked on each other. Getting the popcorn down is quick and filthy. Getting what's underneath flat enough to paint is slow, and that's where most of your price sits. San Antonio Expert Drywall prices the two halves separately at the house, so you can see what you're buying.

Before either one, a sprayed ceiling gets a sample cut out and sent to a laboratory to be tested for asbestos. Nobody can tell by looking, so nobody on our side guesses.

That's why popcorn ceiling removal in San Antonio starts with a lab result. Comes back clean, and you've got an ordinary scrape, a skim and a flat ceiling. Comes back positive, and it isn't ours to take down, and you'll know that before you've spent a dollar.

Nobody Can Tell What Is in a Popcorn Ceiling by Looking

Not us, not a painter, not a home inspector. Older contractors call the same thing an acoustic ceiling, and the name tells you nothing about what's in it. The age of your house shifts the odds and settles nothing, so every sprayed ceiling gets sampled before a scraper goes near it.

How your popcorn ceiling gets tested for asbestos

A certified inspector cuts small samples, usually from more than one spot, because a ceiling sprayed over two sessions can come back two ways. We don't do that part and we don't fold it into the drywall price, so you're never paying us to grade our own work. Your ceiling stays exactly as it is until the result is in.

What happens if your ceiling comes back positive

Then it isn't ours to scrape, and you'll hear that from us the day the result lands. Taking it down becomes asbestos abatement, a separate trade with its own equipment and its own containment, and that work goes to an abatement contractor.

Plenty of people go the other way. A positive ceiling can be left where it is and covered with a new layer of drywall under it, so you get the same flat ceiling with nothing up there disturbed.

Six Things That Move the Price of a Popcorn Ceiling

Whether paint has been rolled over your popcorn, because painted popcorn fights the scraper
Whether the run climbs a stairwell or opens into a vaulted ceiling
Where the supply vents and the return sit in your room
Whether the surface above the popcorn has been opened up and repaired before
What you want up there when we finish, flat or a fine stipple sprayed back on
Any stain or soft spot overhead, which we deal with before the finish coat

How Messy Is Popcorn Ceiling Removal?

Scraping a ceiling is the messiest thing we do inside a house, and we won't pretend otherwise. What decides whether your week is a rough one or an ordinary one is everything that happens before the first scraper comes off the truck.

The mess isn't really the scrapings. Damped down first, popcorn comes off in wet lumps that land on the plastic and leave with us. What travels is the fine dust off the sanding, and in a San Antonio house that means your air conditioning.

Man in a work shirt on a step stool in an emptied bedroom, pressing a square of plastic sheeting flat over a ceiling supply vent and smoothing the tape down, plastic already taped up the walls behind him and a canvas drop cloth over the carpet

Why we tape off your air vents first

Your room has a supply vent overhead and a return near it, and the air conditioning runs most of the year in Bexar County. Leave those open with a sander going and the system carries your ceiling into every other room you own.

So containment starts there. Vents get taped off, the system goes off while we sand, plastic goes up the walls and across the floor, and the doorway closes behind a zipper. Your floor gets vacuumed before the plastic comes up, and everything we take down leaves with us.

What has to come out of the room

Less than most people expect. Anything small, breakable or worth money comes out. The couch and the bed get sheeted and stay where they are, and you're welcome to stay in the house while we work.

What Decides Your Popcorn Ceiling Removal Price

Your ceiling is priced by the square foot, and the biggest lever is how far you want it taken. Off is one price. Off, skimmed, sanded and ready for the roller is another, because the finishing is most of the labor and all of the skill. We split the two on your estimate.

What Your Ceiling Looks Like Under the Popcorn

Under the popcorn is plain drywall with taped joints, and it was never finished to be looked at. Nobody floats a ceiling smooth when a texture is going over the top. So a fresh scrape gives you seam lines and screw dimples, and that's normal.

It's also why the scrape on its own isn't the job. Your ceiling gets a thin coat of joint compound spread over the whole surface. That gets sanded back and read with a light held flat against it before any primer goes near it.

A flat ceiling or a fine stipple sprayed back on

Most people want flat, and a flat ceiling is what makes a room look taller. Some do better with a fine stipple sprayed back over the top. That's a light spatter that breaks the surface up just enough, and it's the kinder finish on a ceiling with a lot of history in it.

Worth having ready when you call

  • The rooms on your list, and how big each one is
  • Whether paint has ever gone over the popcorn
  • Whether a ceiling fan, a skylight or a soffit sits in the run
  • Whether a sample has already been to a lab, and what it said
  • Whether you want a flat ceiling or a fine stipple back on
  • Anything overhead that is stained, cracked or soft

Popcorn ceilings and getting a San Antonio house ready to sell

Resale is the other reason these get booked. Your ceilings sit in every photograph of every room, and taking the popcorn off is one of the cheaper changes that shows in all of them. Say so when you call and we'll price the rooms that show.

Popcorn Ceiling Questions San Antonio Homeowners Ask Us

What does popcorn ceiling removal cost in San Antonio?

Taken all the way to a flat ceiling ready for paint, $2 to $5 per square foot. A bedroom ceiling of about 180 square feet lands around $400 to $900 finished. Where yours sits inside that comes down to the height and to how much filling the surface underneath needs. We'll write your own price down at the house.

How much is it to take the popcorn off a whole San Antonio house?

A large living area or a few rooms, about 500 square feet of ceiling, runs $1,000 to $2,500 finished. The ceilings of a typical single-story house, about 1,600 square feet, run $3,000 to $8,000. Rooms done together come out better for you than the same rooms one at a time, because the containment goes up once.

What is the cheapest way to get rid of a popcorn ceiling?

A scrape with no finishing after it, at $1 to $2 per square foot. What you get is a ceiling showing taped joints, screw dimples and scraper marks, and under a lamp it reads worse than the popcorn did. It's a fair choice when a fresh texture is going back over the top, and we'll tell you if that's you.

How do you remove a fifty-year-old popcorn ceiling?

The same way as any other one, and it starts in the same place. The age of your house doesn't decide what's in the ceiling, so it gets sampled and read by a laboratory first. A certified inspection runs $250 to $700. After a clean result an old ceiling scrapes like a new one, except that older popcorn has often been painted, and paint makes it slower to release.

What happens if my popcorn ceiling tests positive for asbestos?

Then it doesn't get scraped, and we'll say so plainly rather than work around it. Removal becomes asbestos abatement, a separate trade with its own equipment, and ceilings run $6 to $11 per square foot, toward $18 where access is awkward. Covering your ceiling instead, with a new layer of drywall under it, is the other route people take, and we can price that for you.

Is popcorn ceiling removal a big job?

Messy is a better word for it than big. Popcorn isn't hard to get off, it's just unpleasant to stand under, and that's most of what you're handing to us. Most rooms take two visits, because compound has to dry before it can be sanded. One room gets sealed, worked and cleared before the next one starts.

What Else We Do on San Antonio Ceilings and Walls

Ceiling Repair

A crack overhead, or a corner that has gone soft, worth putting right before anybody smooths the ceiling.

Why drywall ceiling repair takes longer than a wall →

Drywall Texture

For when you would rather have a light texture back on your ceilings than a flat finish.

How we match the drywall texture already on your walls →

Drywall Repair

Walls worth putting right while your room is already sealed, emptied and covered.

How to tell what your drywall crack means →

Water Damage Drywall Repair

A brown ring on a ceiling is a different job, and it comes before the scraper does.

What a water stain on drywall is hiding →

Drywall Repair in Hollywood Park

Under the oaks north of the loop, from an era when sprayed ceilings were the building standard.

Drywall repair in Hollywood Park, ceilings included →

Drywall Repair in Terrell Hills

Small, close in and largely older, where matching what is already on the ceiling matters more than anywhere.

Drywall repair in Terrell Hills, older ceilings included →
Man in a work shirt crouched on a swept tile floor at the end of the day, rolling up the floor plastic into a bundle, the newly flattened ceiling overhead carrying its first fresh coat of white and a sofa back in its place and still half sheeted behind him

Get Your FREE Estimate

Tell us which rooms you have in mind and whether paint has ever been over the popcorn. Looking at your ceiling and pricing it is free, and you get the price in writing before we leave. Send a photo with the form below, or talk it through on 830-429-4502.

Your popcorn ceiling gets tested first, then scraped and finished flat.

Call Us Now! 830-429-4502