I live in a house built in 1980 in CT, which I bought in 2011. I have a kind of unique situation in my downstairs bathroom: it has popcorn ceiling on a heated ceiling. The whole first floor has it, but the bathroom is the only one peeling. I installed a fan in the basement that sucks a considerable part of the humidity by using an automatic switch, but still, walls and mirror get foggy when hot showers are taken, and of course, the ceiling gets most of it, so it peeled again after I installed the fan and repainted it.
I thought about replacing the drywall with cement board (and possibly ceramic tiles), but I don't really know if I can do that, considering the heating system is somewhere over there. I considered leaving the drywall in place (covering it with the cement board), but I wonder if the heating will still work. One option could be to install a baseboard heater and go for the drywall replacement, but a solution without that would be better.
When I painted it, I scraped only the parts that were loose, and applied a primer specific for that, after getting out the dust. It's peeling less than before, but still doing it, especially right over the shower (where the upstairs bathtub apparently leaked on and was repaired) and around a drywall tape in the middle of the ceiling. Am I missing any possibilities here? What would you suggest?
I've seen this several times before with bathrooms. Popcorn ceilings should never be used in them to start with...they don't take moisture. As far as the cable heat in the ceiling, you're stuck with it. You can't cover it with drywall or anything else or it will never heat again. There is no way of knowing where the heating cables are in the ceiling, so you can't fasten anything to it without hitting it. You DO NOT want to do that. The only solution I have besides having someone remove everything down to the ceiling joists and starting over, is to take a putty knife and a damp sponge and slowly scrape off the finish so you can paint over it once and for all. You'll need to use a thick primer like KILZ or something. I've seen people try everything you are and it will always end up the same way. Sorry for your troubles.