Joint Compound pulling off

Did you vacuum and clean the walls thoroughly between coats of topping compound?

Ummm..no, but when I was finished sanding I did dust the walls with a rag. I just painted a little more and it seemed not to happen if I painted with a real light coat. Not that it was globbed before. Not sure if that was the answer or if I was just lucky

Nothing you do with a paint brush or roller should be pulling off the new drywall mud.

Did the paint on the popcorn have a gloss finish? Too late now but coating with primer may have helped.
4 pails of mud is a lot for just skim coating a ceiling. How thick to you put it on?

got any pics

Aw, the notorious nature of popcorn ceilings. My guess is that mudding/skimming on top of the popcorn loosened the popcorn up from the original drywall surface it covered. Probably not noticeable if you did a few thin coats. Now, with even a little bit of pressure from your roller (remember, there is a bit of a "suction effect") it is pulling it off and I'm guessing that it's pulling it off down to the original drywall surface and that mess is getting all mashed up into your roller cover.

A pic would sure help us confirm what 's going on there.

When the popcorn texture gets wet (with paint) and then you run your roller over a few times it is literally pulling the old texture off the wall. I know it's a little late now but it may have been better to remove the old popcorn ceiling first. It's actually pretty easy to do but very messy. I have sprayed it with a water hose let it soak for a few moments and it will come right off with let's say a 12 inch spackle knife. But now that all that mud is up there the only way I can think of painting it without out pulling of the old texture would be to spray the paint on and don't touch it till its dry.

We have popcorn on our ceiling. The painter warned us painting often takes the stuff off. He usually knocks the stuff off and goes back with a spayed on texture before painting. Ours will wait until I get our boys through college.

Holy Schneike - you must have 100 lbs of drywall compound up there just waiting for a humid day to fall on your head! Wet all that down, scrape all of that mess off with a broad knife, taking the popcorn with it.

Once that is all down and most of the old popcorn is down, you can roll on texture with flat ceiling white.

Thunder Chicken said:

Holy Schneike - you must have 100 lbs of drywall compound up there just waiting for a humid day to fall on your head! Wet all that down, scrape all of that mess off with a broad knife, taking the popcorn with it.

Once that is all down and most of the old popcorn is down, you can roll on texture with flat ceiling white.

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why? would you want to do that?

chrisn said:

why? would you want to do that?

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Because there is a thick layer of joint compound on the ceiling sticking to nothing except popcorn? Best time to fix it is now while they are looking at it.

Thunder Chicken said:

Holy Schneike - you must have 100 lbs of drywall compound up there just waiting for a humid day to fall on your head! Wet all that down, scrape all of that mess off with a broad knife, taking the popcorn with it.

Once that is all down and most of the old popcorn is down, you can roll on texture with flat ceiling white.

Click to expand...

for the heck of it I just looked up the weight of a pail of mud, its about 65 lbs, so the OP might have close to 260 lbs on the ceiling.
Of course if it is anything like my ceiling work 20% would already be on the floor :wink2:

What do we use to remove popcorn, water, because it loosens it. What is one of the components of joint compound water. There is enough compound to hurt someone when it falls off and it will fall off.

Thunder Chicken said:

Because there is a thick layer of joint compound on the ceiling sticking to nothing except popcorn? Best time to fix it is now while they are looking at it.

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It was stated that all the JC AND popcorn would be gone leaving a bare ceiling that would just need primed and painted.


"Wet all that down, scrape all of that mess off with a broad knife, taking the popcorn with it."