horrible stuff and the house is covered in the stuff. There has got to be a better way than painstakingly steaming and scraping every single inch of the stuff? Anyone?

I did a whole 3 bedroom house a while back, every wall and ceiling in the whole house.

if there is an easy way, I never found it.

Ended up dropping the ceilings and re boarding. And a few of the walls too.

Lots of scratches to the surface then steam and scrape. Or just replaster over the top if it’s well stuck. When you consider there is a high chance it was applied to cover walls with damaged plaster and you’ll possibly be replastering anyway…..

Yep, just get the bits that matter re-plastered.

Or just leave it. I found it took me approximately 8 months to more-or-less stop noticing it.

😀

strong ale, a scarifier, a steamer, mates and patience.

If it’s covered in paint you’ve got to break that layer first (as suggested above); you can get various gadgets like this
Then steam, so settle in for a long day

With enough steam, patience and sratching it will come off.

My last house had it all over the places, with paper both underneath and over the top of it. Then paint over the top of that. It came off eventually, but was like stripping armour plate.

we had gloss paint on ours, many strong a ale was needed and whisky later on.

We’ve got (or should I say, had) a decent amount of woodchip wallpaper in our house form the previous owner.

The thing that made the difference to getting it off was one of those scorers that timba links to above.
It still wasn’t easy, but it did allow the steam to penetrate the paint and top layer of wallpaper and get to the glue underneath.

I think you are better off spending a longer to start with using one of those scorers and absolutely cover the paper, rather than give it a quick whizz round & crack on with the steamer.

Oh, and if you get one of those scorers, wear safety glasses when using it. Bits of paint will chip off and are a nightmare to get out of your eyes…

Just burn the house down. It’ll be quicker to rebuild.

Been there and just done my last room. I also had the displeasure or removing artexing that was done by Stevie Wonder.

Bite the bullet, score hard and steam it off. After that, get all the walls skimmed if your budget allows. Never want to take paper off a wall again.

buy/rent/borrow a wallpaper steamer and go for it.

Spent 10days the other week doing a m8’s new house, top to bottom… Just get the best steamer you can (b&q ones are fine for a small amounts but I ended up with 2 on the go, one ready for when the 1st ran out) & a good scrapper & lots of patience. I had lots of time to try different technic’s, & had been an advocate of scoring, but ended up not bothering, as yes you get penetration around the scoring but unless you score every cm, the un-scored bits between stop any ability to peel a good amount off in one go. Simply I found lots of steam (holding in one place) & take layers off, leaving the layer below, & then start again with that ‘under layer’ after you’ve done all of the 1st

Plasterboard.

Evil stuff, you have my sympathy.

z1ppy – Member

….& had been an advocate of scoring, but ended up not bothering, as yes you get penetration around the scoring but unless you score every cm, the un-scored bits between stop any ability to peel a good amount off in one go.

That’s why the Stanley scorer is good. It’s got 3 spiked castor wheels that put tons of little holes in the paper, providing you spend a bit of time whizzing it around before you start & that you apply a decent pressure.
You end up with 100’s of perforations in the paint/paper that allow the steam to penetrate and when you pull a strip off it will generally stay together rather than ripping along a score line.

Still a pain to get the paper off though, just a bit less of a pain than without it.

Do you have young children? If so, have an open house party for every single one of their school mates. Don’t restrict it to just their class; open it up to the whole school.

With upwards of 50 four to ten year olds in the house they should have picked every single sodding wood chip out of the paper within a few hours.

😀

If you haven’t got kids, I’ve got some you can rent by the hour.

I removed woodchip from the ceiling of one of the bedrooms in my house – I was fearful of what I’d find behind it. The plaster however turned out to be almost perfect, so the previous owner must have papered the ceiling with woodchip because they liked it!!! (they had also papered downstairs loo with the same wallpaper as the walls – never seen that done before!)

If you’ve a lot to do, then it may be worth hiring a steamer. I found the steamer I hired significantly more powerful than my own Bosch (DIY-grade) one. Do need to be a bit careful though so’s not to blow the plaster.

That little spiking tool looks great!

Never really got the issue with stripping woodchip?
Anyhow, a spiked roller or similar to punch holes, lots of steam and a scraper that takes a blade, as opposed to a solid one. Jobs a good un!

scraper that takes a blade

This is a good tip, and some spare blades.

I just went at the walls like an animal with a stanley knife rather than the spikey rollers, seemed to work. I can see how they’d help though.

Dreadful job at the best off times. We had a few corners of our house (before it was all removed) where 3 different textured wallpapers met. One of those surfaces was a ceiling. In fact, 90% of the ceilings had textured wallpaper on them (covering up the taped plasterboard, now all skimmed). There is no more vile way to spend your time than removing WALLpaper off a ceiling.

Scoring helps get the water behind the paint and into the glue. Maybe also try scoring and sponging/soaking with sugar soap first before steaming. Every little helps! Good luck!!

Just bought a new house.

Woodchip, woodchip everywhere……………….

And the Miss’rs want’s to put lining paper up again before painting, as apparently that’s the proper way to do it*, I’ve told her my order of preference is:

1) pay a plaster to skim the walls
2) scrape my eyes out with a rusty spoon
3) line the wall with paper and have to stare at the cracks/lines for the next 20 years wishing I’d just had it skimmed.

*she also core’s parsnips before roasting, I blame the parents.

Just make sure when using the roller spiker to not accidentally let your fingertips overlap.

Took bloody ages to heal.

I always wondered why you just couldnt orbital sander/flapper disc the crap outta it?

The woodship ordeal continues.

But the latest “WFT were you thinking” joy was removing the tiles that had been put around a sink in the bedroom* and finding that they had been fitted on top of the woodchip! In what world is that OK?

*Dear the 70s, sinks in bedrooms? Why?

Score and get small child to Spray with water, wait, spray with water, steam. Small child needs biscuits every often.

our first house we had artex on wood chip, hated diy ever since.