Solvent to remove wallpaper?

Mrsmoneypenny

This morning i have been attempting to remove ten year old wallpaper border.

I have tried various things i have seen on the internet; steaming (knew that clothes steamer would eventually have a use), wetting, vinegar, fabric softener, scoring, not scoring, WD40, getting hold of the edge and carefully trying to pull it off and last of all pure patience! Patience has now run out.

Nothing has resulted in anything longer than a piece A4 piece of paper coming off, but still there is a lot of glue left on the wall. I am doing two very large rooms.

I have had a look on the internet and I have seen people mention wallpaper removal solvent.

Is there a brand name for this (it wasnt mentioned)?

Has anyone tried a solvent and did it work?

wallbash

that clothes steamer would eventually have a use

So it produces steam , but has it got the 'plate'

Israfel

The one thing you will need is patience unfortunately, I found a steamer the best way to go about it, you can pick one up for 20 quid and that'll get the stuff off pretty quick. I got a scourer and various water soluble wall paper removers but they didnt do much for my old wallpaper. The steamer was the only thing that got the job done. althought admittedly my allpaper was ancient and painted over multiple times

tanith

When I did this and wanted to preserve the wallpaper underneath as we were going to paint over it.. I managed to tear off the top layer of the border leaving behind a papery backing and then dampened the backing with a wet cloth and rubbed that off with an old sponge... it didn't damage the wallpaper very much and once that was painted over you couldn't tell....

ormus

get a proper wallpaper steamer. itll make short work of stripping the paper off.
the hot steam melts the glue. you may need to scrape off the/any residue after.

daveyjp

'Wallpaper removal solvent" = washing up liquid.

Scoring and very hot water with washing up liquid in it. Paint it on and leave it for 10 minutes. Do this three or four times then try and remove. If this fails you will need to hire a pro steamer.