Best way to remove woodchip wallpaper?

Nigelw

As an ex-decorating contractor I have had the misfortune to have had to strip many many sq yards of painted over wall papers including the (now out of fashion-thank God) woodchip or Donkey's breakfast as some used to call it.
A steam stripper works best but must be used with caution on un-sound plaster.
However as You say that you are going to have the wall re-plastered if necessary you don't have to use the same degree of care.

I have tried most methods of stripping stubborn wallpaper over the years and the best advice I can give is use a small sharp scraper, the type that hold a Stanley blade are best, don't rush it let the water do the work, wet it with a brush or a pump up garden spray set on fine mist, I add a little washing up liquid as a wetting agent. Wet it let it soak and wet it again, repeat as necessary. Hot water is best and you will need to lightly score through the paint to allow the water to penetrate, you can use P60 glass paper or hire/buy one of the purpose made tools.
After you have stripped the bulk of the paper, wet the wall again and run over it with a broad bladed scraper (sharpened to a flat edge) to remove the little nibs that are left, follow this with a damp sponge. Let the wall dry, then check the surface again by running the broad bladed scraper lightly over the surface. It may sound like a lot of hard and often it is but in decorating preparation is the most important part of the job.

Ben84

I find any kind of painted wallpaper is sealed by the paint and it's hard to get water/steam in to it. Scratching up the paint layer with something like a wire brush works, but be careful not to go too deep and damage the plaster while doing this. It's not too hard to strip when there's lots of scrapes in the paint to let the water in, but will still need extra soaking time. I found sponging on water, waiting a couple of minutes and doing it again until the paper comes off easily worked. Being patient saved time in the end. You don't need to hack at it, just soak until it's ready.

heretohelp

Best way I found is to get a long handle scraper (pound shop) and scape all the little chips off first then start from the top steam and scrape as normal.
Any water that runs down the wall is soaked up by the paper and should get easier to scrape by the time you reach the bottom.

onomatopoeia99

Nigelw wrote: »

in decorating preparation is the most important part of the job.

This is so true!

robotrobo

A.Watson wrote: »

Hi,



What is the best way to remove the woodchip with minimal damage?

Any advice much appreciated

Best way to remove woodchip wallpaper



give the wife a scraper!:)

A_Frayed_Knot

We scored it with the edge of the scrapper in a criss cross, then depending on whether there is no carpet or floor covering, I bought a pump sprayer (like for the roses in the garden) as I was stripping the whole house, then filled with warm water with a little washing up liquid and sprayed the walls. Left a few minutes then scrapped off.

There was one wall where the paper actually came off in strips, so didn't need scored.

DRP

Score, sponge and scrape.

A wallpaper steamer will also make things easier. You will get some damage, but irrelevant if you're having it re-skimmed.

I speak from the experience of stripping 'donkey's breakfast' wallpaper from every wall and ceiling in my old knockthrough lounge-diner - which had very high ceilings...