EZ Strip Popcorn Ceiling Remover 1 Gallon

I researched a lot before tackling my painted popcorn ceilings. I didn’t find much on the internet about scraping painted popcorn. I actually learned a lot from EZ Strip reviews. This product was sold under Ecosolve X-Tex and there is great reviews/advice there. Here is what I learned -I think the amount of effort scraping painted popcorn simply depends on the paint and the thickness of the popcorn. I was able to get away with just spraying water in most all the areas, but I did used EZ Strip when water wouldn’t budge the popcorn. I think the previous owner patched a few places on the ceiling at those areas didn’t scrape like the rest. Anyway, EZ Strip did an excellent job and I only needed to let it sit about 10 minutes. My guess is the plastic that is recommended on youtube is for the worst of worst cases and more than likely just letting the product sit for 10-20 minutes will be enough. Do neutralize with water after using.I did not buy the fancy scrapper that has a bag on the end to catch the mess. The reviews were too mixed and I was worried about the weight anyway. I used a 10 inch putty knife and that gave me a lot of control and just that wore my arms out.Lay the plastic on the floors first and tape it to the baseboard. Then tape the plastic to the walls. I found scraping to be a little more dusty than I thought, but I also didn’t let the water soak in too long (like 2-3 minutes). I was too worried about damaging the sheet rock. The plaster does soften if too wet and it is somewhat easy to scrape the paper off the sheet rock if you use too much muscle and not the correct angle of the putty knife.I purchased the 12 pack plastic sheets (9x12) at Lowes. I used a lot of plastic. Plan on buying many of these packs. Buy the blue painters tape – 1.5 inches. The blue tape will last a while – I think probably one roll of tape for every 12 rolls of plastic.By far preparing for the work took longer than scraping. I’d guess I could scrape 100 sq feet in 30 minutes. It goes super fast, but taping and clean up is just a ton of work. I was quoted $3.00 per square foot for removal. I saved myself a lot of money on a rainy weekend.I sanded the ceilings before I moved the plastic, and I also cleaned up after removing the plastic with a shop vac with a hepa filter and drywall vacuum system – inexpensive and nice to have. Running the shop vac with the plastic would cause a huge mess due to the blower on the end of the vac.I used a ¼ nap roller to roll on Zinsser and then 2 coats of ceiling paint.I hope this helps someone. I felt more comfortable having EZ Strip on hand even though I was lucky with my painted ceilings and only needed to use EZ Strip a few times. I’m sure I’ll use it with another project. It was friendly. I didn’t care for the smell, but not a big deal. Once you clean with water and remove the plastic with the old popcorn on the floor, the smell will be gone. Fall time is a great time for this project because the heat/ac was off.Good luck!

Very rarely do I write reviews on anything unless I'm very passionate about it either way - good or bad.With that being said, this is worthy of reviewing!I have been working on renovating an entire house, of which every room had popcorn texture on the ceilings. I finally got to the last room - I've been procrastinating doing because the popcorn had been painted over. Based on experience painted popcorn removal is the worst. Dusty, messy and much more difficult to remove and generally there's a tendency to damage to the ceiling in spots when attempting removal. I came upon a YouTube video demonstrating how this product worked for painted popcorn ceilings and I thought what the heck, give it a try.Seriously, it's a game changer! I rolled it on with a thick nap paint roller and although it says to leave on for 4 to 12 hours, I started removing it with ease after only having it sit for 30 minutes to an hour. It literally scraped off like butter.I did make sure to plastic off the walls and the floor and after removing the textured product, I simply let it dry overnight and picked up the plastic and tossed it out. There was no dust and it was no where near as sloppy as using just plain water. Clean up was seriously a breeze.

If you are buying this product you have already found that your options are very limited. This was the option I chose to go with (the others being skim coating the entire popcorn ceiling twice and hanging 1/2" drywall over the existing ceiling). The product is not great--in that it is not easy, clean or fun but it does work. Be prepared to skim coat much of the ceiling after the popcorn is down.A couple of tips I would suggest not listed in the instructions.1.) If you have multiple layers of paint, you can stretch the product by first scraping the popcorn texture with a floor scraper or a taping knife attached to a pole--fasten it with hose clamps. This let the product absorb into the popcorn and I used less but scraping a ceiling sucks so it may not be worth it for you.2.) I highly recommend applying a healthy coat to the edges of the room with a brush and go right up to the edge. I did not do that in the beginning and found that I had a lots of extra sanding to do around the edges which was hard and time consuming.Good luck, you are about to be part of elite group of homeowners removing the 80's from their homes.

We have been slowly removing the popcorn ceilings throughout our house and the last room was our main bath. The problem that we came across was that the popcorn was painted with multiply layers of paint. After reading and researching there were not many options until I came across EZ strip. I was skeptical because I have never had luck with paint strippers and I was concerned about it destroying the drywall, but this stuff works great! I put a thick layer on and let it set for about 30 minutes. Because I am impatient I wanted to see if it was working I decided to test a spot, and surprisingly, everything came off like butter!The first coat took almost all of the popcorn and paint off, I only had to do a few small touchups where it was texture in areas. It is messy, so be sure to lay down drop cloths and to protect the walls plastic.It does have a smell, but not as bad as other paint strippers. Just be sure to keep doors and windows open if at all possible.

Used one gallon of the four I bought and returned the rest. It worked but it was not easy. I used it on my bathroom ceiling after struggling to get it to scrape with water. It was a lot of work for a 5x7 room, just trying to get the plastic to stick to the ceiling and not fall down was tough. Scraping wasn't really any easier, it was still the hardest room I did, and the results looked terrible. I had the entire ceiling skim coated professionally in order to cover up all the bits left behind. For me, it was too much work and too much money for the results I got. I used almost an entire gallon just doing the two small bathrooms and it took hours longer.