Removing woodchip/textured wallpaper and polystyrene ceiling tiles?

KaratePigeon

Morning

We have found a house we want to buy and are likely to put in an offer after our 2nd viewing today. It's generally well-maintained but there is an elderly couple living in it and every surface is covered with some sort of texture About 80% of the walls are covered in woodchip, the rest of it heavy duty textured wallpaper. A few ceilings are wallpapered and the rest are covered with hideous patterened polystyrene tiles.

Just so I know what I am letting myself in for, how difficult is this stuff to remove? I remember my mum peeling off some woodchip wallpaper years ago and it pulled loads of plaster off with it - so I'm worried I would need to factor in re-plastering into my budget!?

The house was built in 1958, is there anything else I should be aware of (asbestos?)

Thanks

Grimbal

We've just bought a 1959 house that sounds like yours (apart from ceiling tiles) !

We've removed overpainted textured wallpaper in two of the bedrooms & dining room so far, and the results have varied wildly. Bed 2 had no issues and could have been repainted after a little bit of filling, bed 1 needed more prep work but could've been rescued, but the dining room will need to be re-skimmed.

So, it's difficult to say what the result of taking the wallpaper off in the place you have your eye on, but I suppose it might be sensible to keep the cash back in case it does need more professional work than a bit of filling/sanding. Presumably though, the house price reflects that it needs a bit of work?

On another note, make sure you get a thorough survey done on this one - we found that ours was looked after really well on most things, but that the electrics were shot - they had been altered, added to and just generally bodged over the years

DVardysShadow

Textured wallpaper and woodchip is a classic for concealing poor plasterwork. The difficulty is knowing whether a reskim will fix it or the problem is deeper.

If you tap your fingers briskly on known good plaster, you will hear fingers tapping on plaster. If you tap on lifted plaster you will hear the lifted plaster hitting on the wall behind. Your problem will be that the wallpapers may confound this simple test - unless there are large lifted areas.

Leif

Just to add to the previous post, when you knock on blown plaster, it will sound hollow. Steamers are a good way to pull off blown plaster. Incidentally if a small area is blown, but looks okay, you can leave it in place.

Polystyrene coving is an absolute pig to remove. You need a scraper to scrape off the glue fragments after the coving is pulled away. The tiles might be as bad, though I have never tried. The worst case is a reskim or even overboarding. Given the age of the house, the ceiling boards might not be taped, so if you skim, they will crack along the joints.

nickj_2

perforate the paper by using one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Halls-Beeline-Wallpaper-Stripper-Blades/dp/B0001IWE4G/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1316244733&sr=8-5

and then strip it using one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Silverline-CB35-Heavy-Duty-Scraper/dp/B000LFXFPQ/ref=pd_sim_diy5

if you are lucky the textured paper can be peeled without steaming , try lifting a seam and pull it away from the wall

Norman_Castle

Polystyrene coving is an absolute pig to remove. You need a scraper to scrape off the glue fragments after the coving is pulled away.

Never tried it but apparently an electric heat gun softens the old glue.