Wood chip hell

misgrace

bookduck wrote: »

It probably depends on the paint used. I'm under the impression that your decorator is lazy, wants a quick, easy and well paying job, or maybe he sees you as 'one born every minute' type cash-cow people.

My gut feeling would be to score the surface with some really rough sandpaper and steam it off.

Have a go, key the surface, rent a steamer and see how it goes, then get an eastern European to either continue or decorate.

It it come to the worst, don't knock out the wall, just plaster board over.

I agree with Bookduck, I have not long stripped a 3 bed semi,all walls, but only 4 ceilings, including dining room,sitting room, kitchen and a large HSL.
Not only was most of the woodchip painted over with Silk, but there were layers underneath:eek:
I used a steamer, but prior to using it, I scored the walls, then got a bucket of very hot soapy water, got an old roller, attached it to my roller pole, dipped the roller in the soapy water, and rolled the walls with the soapy water, but be warned, if you do this, you must place some polythene, or tarpaulin underneath, as the water will run down the walls, but it does the trick
Whilst the water is soaking in to the scored walls, the steamer is heating up, sometimes the paper will come off without the steamer, but if not not, just place the plate on the soaked walls, and the paper will comes off very easily.

It took me 7 working days to strip the lot, one ceiling had the horrible polysterene tiles, but didnt use the roller on that lol

I just feel your decorator cant be bothered getting it off, wheras I love stripping (yes, I know, I must get out more);) but in all seriousness, I love stripping paper, I can get any paper off, its just soaking, patience, and of course good old elbow grease.:D

dander

I recently had a small amount of vinyl wallpaper to strip (different type of paper I know) and I tried all the steaming, slashing type techniques, but lord knows what kind of glue they'd used, but the stuff would only come off in tiny tiny slivers. Eventually I resorted to using one of the scrapers with a razor type blade in and kind of cutting into the plaster to get the stuff off. It took a lot of blades and forever to do!

If your decorators dealing with the kind of glue I had, I have every sympathy for him!