Popcorn removal and plaster repair in Escondido

Old Escondido is a designated historic district full of Victorian and Craftsman houses, and those are lath-and-plaster buildings rather than drywall ones. The honest answer there is usually plaster repair and a skim rather than tearing a wall out, with the pre-1978 lead rule sitting over the whole job. Everything outside the district is where the volume is: postwar stucco ranch through the 1950s and 1960s, then a very large 1970s and 1980s tract belt, nearly all of it with sprayed acoustic ceilings. California presumes that texture contains asbestos in any building constructed in or before 1980, and San Diego County's air district wants a survey before a renovation regardless of how old the building is — which is why the first thing that happens on one of these ceilings is a phone call to a certified consultant, not a scraper. Under the popcorn, expect a ceiling that was only ever finished to a Level 1, because that is exactly what the popcorn was there to cover. Heat and expansive soil do the rest: doors that stop closing in August, diagonal cracks off the corners of openings, and joints that open and close a little with the season. The east side and the industrial blocks along the 78 and the 15 carry the commercial work — medical offices, light industrial shells and tenant improvements.