Got a room 10*6’6 to do on my own next Monday – great start to half term!
Hints/tips appreciated!
Got:
2 steam strippers
a scorer thing

contemplating Zinsser Dif wallpaper stripping fluid! iming to get it off and not have to skim!
One wall is old cracked plaster (100 year old terrace) so will probably paper over this one! It’s a bedroom/study so may T+G then paint white to freshen it up!

interested too, I have 2 double rooms to do at some point…

gloss painted over woodchip and apparently superglued to the wall was a highlight of my first house.

good luck.

I managed fine with a steam stripper and scraper, although it took a while and was very messy. Once it gets wet enough it will come off

Could be worse……………..you might have an Artex ceiling too!

Scratch it – wet it – repeat!

So having had to strip this horrendous stuff off every wall in a three bed house I can tell you this: zinsser DIF can work but it really depends on the age of the paper and the number of coats of paint- only had it work properly on 1 wall (where it did actually fall off by itself).

If it doesn’t work then it’s the steamer and a scrapper I’m afraid- I found 2-3 applications were required per area. That being said it should only take half a day to strip at the most.

gloss painted over woodchip and apparently superglued to the wall was a highlight of my first house.

+1

Score, steam, scrape… repeat

Don’t skimp on the first 2!#

Find some decent albums to keep you sane.

let the steamer do the work,
Worked with a decorator who when faced with hard to remove paper would apply Wallpaper paste liberally to walls with a roller and tray and it would liven up the old dry paste under the paper and it would just fall Off with a scraper.

i don’t share your optimism – looks like the work of satan to me!

Easiest option – Burn you house down and get a new one on insurance.

Alternatively, score the paper and wet though / steam and strip off in 5pence piece sized bits.

Score steam scrape repeat

I’ve done at least 4 rooms now, and wased a good few weeks holidays on them.

Yes, I have Artex too 🙁

Score steam scrape repeat

Then Tom Cruise pops round to remove your wallpaper.

Having stripped a lot of vinyl and woodchip wallpaper over the last two years, I will offer the following advice.

– Turn the steamer on early, with the head in a buckt, so it can be getting the room steamy

– Score the flip out of, using something like this:

– Score it some more, and then a bit more

– Steam the flip out of it first: Start at the top, hold the steamer head in place for a good twenty seconds, then move it across, another twenty, move it across again, another twenty. Move it down a ‘row’ and repeat. keep going to the bottom of that roll of paper.

– Steam the flip out of it again: Another 3*20 second bursts on the top row, by then you should be able to get the scraper behind. Then move down, row buy row, and with look you can take the sheet off in one, scraping behind it as it peels down the wall.

You will sweat your man boobs off. However, keep windows and doors shut; the steamier the room, the easier the job.

I’ve done 4 rooms in my house including ceilings!
It was a bit random an how easy to get off depended mainly on the quality of the plaster skim behind. Some rooms took days to do. I don’t envy you at all!
Steamer is the best thing I found to help.

Smash it with a hammer it’ll probably loosen the plaster but by the time you’ve removed the bloidy stuff you’ll need a reskim anyway!

Alse use a sharp scraper work wonders.

That rotary scraper thing will work well. I’ve got one from B&Q – different branding but the same thing. Wear glasses when you use it, as shards of paint will tend to fly off as you use it & chances are they will end up in your eye.

Best technique I found was liberal amounts of scoring followed by washing the walls down with a wet sponge to try and get the paper a bit wet.
Then steaming, but don’t linger in one spot for too long or you will end up blowing the plaster.
Perhaps a couple of passes over a wall before going at it with the scraper & having the steamer handy as you go.

It helps if you have an assistant steaming ahead of you.

Pleased to see the thread title has broken the page layout 🙂

I’ve found that if you get the steamer to make a big difference you’ll have loosened chunks of plaster. Best actually to start dry with a sharp 1-2″ rigid scraper, then go at it again with the steamer.

Retitle the thread “getting off with a hot and steamy stripper”. More posts guaranteed. Useful advice has all been given.

So much depends on what lies beneath. I’ve done this on two four storey mid-victorian houses, 10+ ft ceilings, both at some point having been in multiple occupation. Months of my life getting hot and steamy etc etc. Then more months up a ladder with filler. Never again. Never never again. Hth.

Actually, learning to plaster is quicker than trying to get woodchip off. Back to brick and start again.

Just hope that beneath the wood chip they’ve not used tar based damp covering plaster, which the steam heat melts, sticking everything to the wall.
My young kids snuck in and stripped most of a wall in half the time it took me. Wasn’t a wall I wanted stripped, but he ho.

– Score the flip out of, using something like this:

Not that one though, it’s rubbish and the wheels keep falling off. But others like it are great.

+1 for getting the room humind.

If you have helpers and not enough steamers, a bucket of hot VERY soapy water (pour a whole bottle of cheap floor cleaner in a bucket) and a sponge or a spray bottle of kitchen cleaner, anything to get soap soaking into the paper.

Carefully with the steamer on old plaster, it’ll blow it off the brickwork.

Not tried the tip of soaking the paper with more paste, guess it should work as the paste would keep the paper wet for hours.

Carefully with the steamer on old plaster, it’ll blow it off the brickwork

very much this. Particularly if it’s a lathe and plaster wall.

Plasterboard is a pain too – you take the top coat of paper off the board.

Sounds a bloody awful job, when was the last time some fool actually hung that stuff – it must have been the 70s?

I can guess successive owners all looked it at “that looks terrible, it’s got to go” thought about it and said “sod it, I’ll paint over it” could be 6-7 types of paint over it.

Just plaster over it, it will drop off of it’s own accord in a few weeks time

😛

Sounds a bloody awful job, when was the last time some fool actually hung that stuff – it must have been the 70s?

It’s the one thing our 70’s house doesn’t have thankfully!

Artex ceilings – check

Damask wall paper – check

Damask wallpaper over artex ceilings – check (thankfully it just falls off)

Wooden rawl plugs – check (easier to just knock lumps of plaster/brick out and fill the hole than get them out!)

Avocado sink – check (in the bedroom, although we did consider keeping the g-plan medicine cabinet as we quite like mid-century stuff)

Burn the house down and claim the insurance.

It’ll be quicker and less pain in the long run.

I worked in Homebase until 8 years ago and we still sold wood chip when I left. Bonkers.

You can buy smooth paper now that reinforces the wall which is much better so it’s days are numbered. Maybe in 50/60 years it will all be gone.

Nuclear holocaust wouldn’t touch it though. 😉

I’ve been avoiding removing woodchip for… err… 17 years. I think I’ll just paint it as it’s only up the windowless stairs and landing.

My last house had the stuff in every room. I managed to clear the lot over about 6 years then sold up and left. Best recommend action is to fire up the steamer a good 30min before you start and let it saturate the room while you elsewhere.

I’ve done a bit of this … Usually in my underpants!
+1 on the scoring ,steamer and turning the room in to a sauna.
I also find a pre scrape, generous sponging of the wall,using extremely bubbly warm water helps. That and lots of tea breaks with biscuits.
Oh! Buy the scraper that has a Stanley blade&spare blades…

You have woodchip wallpaper in your underpants?

Sometimes feels like it. 🙂

Oh yeah, forgot to add that I needed a re-skim on around 80% of the walls the steamer touched!

Wallpaper paste works. Serious suggestion – it holds moisture against the wood chip for ages, allowing it to become soaked and thus scraped off more easily. You might not need to use a steamer at all.