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Skylights With Ceiling Texture – It Was Never Meant to Be

Skylights are a great way to brighten a room. The natural light is flattering and your energy bill can often be reduced since less artificial light is needed. However, if they are not finished correctly, like skylights with ceiling texture, problems can arise. Texture is applied to skylights for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s done to cut corners. It’s easier to spray popcorn ceiling than it is to finish the drywall properly. Other times it’s done because the homeowner likes the look.

Regardless of the reason, it’s a terrible idea. As mentioned in a previous post (Moldy skylights, cracked and peeling off?), skylights are naturally more hot and humid than the rest of the house. That lurking moisture and ceiling texture is not a good combination. It can cause cracking, peeling, and even mold build-up and then you’re left with a real mess. It’s far better to finish it properly from the start. If you do have skylights with ceiling texture, RemoveCeilingTexture.com is the solution to your problem.

Good Riddance to Bad Ceiling Texture

We were called in to have a look at a home in Port Coquitlam that had skylights with ceiling texture. The homeowner is an architect who had designed and built his home in the early 1980s. At the time, it was common to cover everything with ceiling texture.

Skylights with ceiling texture look dark and dingy

Now, though, the ceiling texture was dirty and stained. The owners were also concerned about their home’s air quality and possible health risks (including asthma), especially to their visiting grandchildren. So after living with it for many years, they decided it was time to kiss the ceiling texture goodbye. We got to work removing the texture in the skylights, and throughout the rest of the house as well.

A Smooth New Start

Once we removed the texture from the skylights and finished them to a smooth surface, they actually looked brighter. The texture had been swallowing up the natural light, but now the light is reflected much more efficiently. Best of all, the owners don’t have to worry about health hazards like mold. They know that their grandchildren can play in their home without being exposed to toxic air. It’s a brand new beginning for the home they designed and built with love.

Cobwebs and dust can build up in ceiling texture

Smooth ceilings suit this custom built home

Do you have skylights with ceiling texture? RemoveCeilingTexture can help! Contact us today for a free quote.

The focus of this article is moldy, cracking and peeling skylights. However before we get into that let’s make one thing clear. If you have a faulty skylight that is leaking into your house, you should replace it. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s address why I’m writing this article.

Skylights are exposed to more moisture

Cracked and peeling skylight fixed in New Westminster

Skylights are almost never installed at the same height as your ceilings. Skylights are usually installed on your roof and there’s usually a hole, 3 to 5 feet in your ceiling that leads to the skylight. This difference in height provides a perfect opportunity for moisture to rise up and get stuck in your skylight with nowhere to go. The moisture then gets absorbed by the popcorn texture, paint and drywall and starts the process of creating mold and mildew. Moldy skylights start cracking and peeling off. They create an eyesore as well as a health hazard.

Skylights are exposed to massive temperature changes

The hole leading up to your skylight gets extremely hot on a summer day. Far hotter than anywhere else in your home. This again is due to the heat not having anywhere to go, so it keeps accumulating in that one spot. This causes the popcorn texture, paint and the drywall to expand beyond their designed limits.

By the same token the space below your skylight gets cooler than anywhere else in your home during the night and in the winter. This causes the popcorn texture, paint and drywall around the skylight hole to shrink beyond their designed limits.

The heating and cooling cycles are repeated 365 days a year and slowly start breaking down the drywall as well as start peeling off the texture and paint that are sprayed inside the skylight.

Popcorn & other ceiling textures were never meant for inside a skylight

Cracked and peeling moldy skylights fixed in Vancouver, BC — Cracked and peeling skylight fixed in Vancouver

Custom homes that were built over the past 40 years in the Metro Vancouver area, usually do not have texture sprayed inside their skylights. If your skylights are sprayed with popcorn texture or any other ceiling texture, it indicates that the builder was trying to cut corners.

Manufacturers of ceiling texture materials specifically instruct not to spray their product on the inside of skylights. The reason against spraying any type of texture inside a skylight is simple. Ceiling texture, including popcorn texture, provides much more surface area for mold and mildew to grow on. Therefore it’s a terrible idea to spray ceiling texture on the inside of a skylight.

Moldy skylights pose a health hazard

Your skylights are very much like any other component of your home. In that once mold and mildew start growing on or below the surface, they pose a serious health hazard to you and your family. We have talked about Asthma and other allergies caused or exacerbated by dust and allergens trapped in textured ceiling surfaces on this website before.

So to conclude, a skylight that is displaying signs of mold and mildew, or starting to crack and peel, is at best an eyesore that needs to be dealt with and at worst a serious hazard to you and your family’s health. It’s necessary to consult a professional and remedy the situation.

Do your skylights need attention? Click here to take action!

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Tag: peeling skylights

Skylights With Ceiling Texture – A Bad Romance