General House (Home) Thread

[CS1983]

For potential new home, some questions:

Popcorn ceiling: scrape myself and have a drywall guy come back and skim areas which need it, or just have him skim over the whole thing (unsure if the popcorn has been painted)

Electrical panel has some double-taps: pigtail w/ wirenut or install different breakers?

Woodpaneling painting: as easy to paint as the Ace hardware video indicates, or major pain?

[Irving]

You don't skim over popcorn, so it'll be scraped one way or the other.

We painted our wood paneling okay. I think the difficulty will be around if it is heavily stained or has some other layer of finish that doesn't take paint well.

[Gman]

Paneling usually requires de-glossing. That can be done chemically or mechanically.

[CS1983]

You don't skim over popcorn, so it'll be scraped one way or the other.

We painted our wood paneling okay. I think the difficulty will be around if it is heavily stained or has some other layer of finish that doesn't take paint well.

I saw a video about it from a drywall guy. Looked good.

[Irving]

If it's painted, it'll be stable enough to take a skim coat, but if not painted, I think you'd be better off scraping. Either way, seems like it'd take a lot more mud to skim over popcorn. Not that mud costs a lot, but it shrinks up as it dries. Just seems like a big pain in the ass compared to just scraping. If you're going to hire a drywall guy to skim anyway, I'd ask him which would be better.

[Great-Kazoo]

If it's painted, it'll be stable enough to take a skim coat, but if not painted, I think you'd be better off scraping. Either way, seems like it'd take a lot more mud to skim over popcorn. Not that mud costs a lot, but it shrinks up as it dries. Just seems like a big pain in the ass compared to just scraping. If you're going to hire a drywall guy to skim anyway, I'd ask him which would be better.

And Cheaper.

[FoxtArt]

Easiest (and safest) option: install ferring strips flat over the popcorn in the same alignment and position as the joists. Install 1/2" drywall over ferring strips. Total height lost: 1.25" remember construction prior to 1976 may have asbethos in popcorn (likely actually) so ferring strips are the safest and cleanest solution. While you're at it, you could install a fiber optic star ceiling or something. PS: I've done a lot of skim coating, many walls in my house are grade 5. It's a lot of work to do right, esp on a ceiling.

If you're out of the asbethos range, you could scrape just on the joist locations to save a little height and still install ferring strips.

[FoxtArt]

Pictures of the electrical panel (or more info) please and indicate your comfort level with doing the work yourself. Is it D-square, even older gen? Arc fault? Know what the service line is? What the panel amperage is?

[FoxtArt]

Reason why, if it were me, I'd just swap out an older gen panel with a D-square of the right amperage rating for your service cable - myself - without pulling a permit, and perhaps forget that it hasn't always been that way. Pull a permit and you'll be paying to upgrade to arc-fault, which is a looooot of $. They don't just let you do electrical upgrades piecemeal, sadly. Want to change out one thing? Better plan on being forced to do it all.

[CS1983]

Pictures of the electrical panel (or more info) please and indicate your comfort level with doing the work yourself. Is it D-square, even older gen? Arc fault? Know what the service line is? What the panel amperage is?

Here's a pic:



I could be comfortable doing the work myself, depending on what others see that I might not be aware of.

100amp main.
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Popcorn - unsure when the crap was sprayed on, but the house itself was built in 1973. If it is gonna be some EPA style nightmare, I'll either scrape it myself while wearing PPE or see how much it would be to have it remediated on the up and up. A little lung cancer never hurt anyone.

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wood paneling - I think I'll probably handle the painting myself. Thoughts on sprayer rental vs rolling on?