Devil Wood Chip paper extreme solution ?

tellme_why

Hello all,
I tried to remove devilish wood chip paper from ceilings in my place recently.
There are thousands of layers of paints, so paper scorers, stanley knife, steam, solutions and their combinations are not effective.

The only way is scoring dry paper with a sharp long handle scraper knife.
I took me one day and lot of physical effort to remove 2 square metres; I just don't have enough holidays and muscles to do the remaining 40 square metres :cool:

I so much hate that devilish paper that I am thinking of removing the plasterboards without touching the wood chip paper, chunk everything in the bin and install new plasterboards :mad:

Anyone tried this before? / Any tips?

Many thanks

Doozergirl

You could just overboard the ceiling instead of removing the existing layer.

Or set fire to the room. That should get rid of it.

Norman_Castle

Have you tried this

CathA

We lived in a house with woodchip in the lounge, stairs, hall and landing, painted with silk vinyl. Let me tell you what DOESN'T work, no matter what you see on t'internet!!

Scoring and steaming-takes forever, silk vinyl (being waterproof) helps keep the steam out. Even with scoring lots, that only means that the layers come off in little bits. You can also blow the lights/electrics etc if you get water dripping into the sockets. If you leave the steamer in one place you can blow the plaster behind. I confess I have done all of the above!

Another helpful idea is to soak the paper in vinegar. Don't-smells like a chip shop and doesn't work. (Again-been there, done that!)

Fabric conditioner- as above, (smells better but doesn't work, I know cos I tried!)

I bought some wallpaper removing solution from a DIY shop, can't remember what it was called, again, woodchip wallpaper laughed in the face of that!!

Let me tell you what works for me. DON'T score or wet it. Rip off as much of the top layer as you can. If it's not wet you don't get the hideous sticky mess that sticks to everything, including your shoes, hair, flooring and the dogs when they kindly decide to walk through it-twice! (By now you should gather that yes, that happened to me!)

Once you're down to mostly the bottom layer, complete with woodchips, get a spray bottle, fill with warm water, bit of washing up liquid/handwash/shampoo and the important ingredient-eucalyptus oil, about 2 capfuls should do. Spray on the backing paper til it's quite damp, walk away for a few minutes and when you go back run a paint scraper over it and it will just fall off the wall. The wall won't be as sticky as it usually is if you just use washing up liquid and it smells much better than vinegar!!

We took all the woodchip off in our house, and then we moved to a house with.....woodchip in the lounge, stairs, hall, landing and as a bonus-the dining room!!

My friend brings me eucalyptus oil from Australia, just taken a delivery of the next 2 bottles, gonna be needed soon as we start on the dining room (sigh!).

On the bright side, woodchip is still sold in shops, so just think of all the first time buyers who will be thanking me in years to come for this handy advice, lol!

And yes, I agree with dozer girl, board over the ceiling. We've renovated 3 houses, boarding over the ceiling would be much quicker (done that too!)

Good luck.

tellme_why

Norman_Castle wrote: »

Have you tried this

.. well.. I just bought it! give me some time to pay back the stamp duty!! :mad:

tellme_why

CathA wrote: »

We lived in a house with woodchip in the lounge, stairs, hall and landing, painted with silk vinyl. Let me tell you what DOESN'T work, no matter what you see on t'internet!!

Scoring and steaming-takes forever, silk vinyl (being waterproof) helps keep the steam out. Even with scoring lots, that only means that the layers come off in little bits. You can also blow the lights/electrics etc if you get water dripping into the sockets. If you leave the steamer in one place you can blow the plaster behind. I confess I have done all of the above!

Another helpful idea is to soak the paper in vinegar. Don't-smells like a chip shop and doesn't work. (Again-been there, done that!)

Fabric conditioner- as above, (smells better but doesn't work, I know cos I tried!)

I bought some wallpaper removing solution from a DIY shop, can't remember what it was called, again, woodchip wallpaper laughed in the face of that!!

Let me tell you what works for me. DON'T score or wet it. Rip off as much of the top layer as you can. If it's not wet you don't get the hideous sticky mess that sticks to everything, including your shoes, hair, flooring and the dogs when they kindly decide to walk through it-twice! (By now you should gather that yes, that happened to me!)

Once you're down to mostly the bottom layer, complete with woodchips, get a spray bottle, fill with warm water, bit of washing up liquid/handwash/shampoo and the important ingredient-eucalyptus oil, about 2 capfuls should do. Spray on the backing paper til it's quite damp, walk away for a few minutes and when you go back run a paint scraper over it and it will just fall off the wall. The wall won't be as sticky as it usually is if you just use washing up liquid and it smells much better than vinegar!!

We took all the woodchip off in our house, and then we moved to a house with.....woodchip in the lounge, stairs, hall, landing and as a bonus-the dining room!!

My friend brings me eucalyptus oil from Australia, just taken a delivery of the next 2 bottles, gonna be needed soon as we start on the dining room (sigh!).

On the bright side, woodchip is still sold in shops, so just think of all the first time buyers who will be thanking me in years to come for this handy advice, lol!

And yes, I agree with dozer girl, board over the ceiling. We've renovated 3 houses, boarding over the ceiling would be much quicker (done that too!)

Good luck.

Thanks for your help! ...
question.. boarding over the ceiling would reduce the ceiling height a bit so I would try to avoid it..
Do you think that removing the existing plasterboard ceiling is a difficult job? ..
many thanks again..

CathA

In the houses we've renovated we took down the plasterboard ceiling in one but it was only a small one. Be warned, if there is cavity wall insulation and it is the small bead type, you'll have it up to your knees before you know it! (Yep, done that as well!)

In another house we just put plasterboard up over the old one but that was a bigger room (we'd learnt our lesson with the cavity wall beads previously.) It only takes a tiny bit of head height out, the width of a piece of plasterboard, about 100mm(?) although you'll need to check. You will need to drop the ceiling light down a bit and also tape and Artex over the joins in the plasterboard. If you do decide to do this, buy Artex as powder, not the ready-made stuff as it's a lot cheaper. You could also mix up some Artex and plaster it over the woodchip, that's one way of solving it, lol!!

Chrishazle

Daughter and SIL had artex ceilings throughout and hated it. Hired a plasterer to plaster skim the whole lot - and have ended up not only repaiting all the ceilings, but also all the walls as the plasterers managed to get plaster on them as well!. However, it was much easier than trying to remove the artex, so may be an idea for getting rid of woodchip.

Kiran

You won't notice a loss in ceiling height using 9.5mm boards. Also you'll save on disposal as plasterboard is not allowed in most regular skips. I've done it a couple of times when I've been up against it and it has definitely been the right choice.

Doozergirl

No one will notice such a small drop
in ceiling height. No one. By the time you've made a potentially dreadful mess and experienced cost and labour removing existing ceilings, you may as well strip the woodchip.

Zoology_Dragon

CathA has the right approach - scrape off the top layer dry than get a steamer on the underneath layer. It comes off pretty quickly that way. It'll be a lot quicker, and cheaper, than overboarding the ceilings if you get your technique right. Our house was covered in it and we're just finishing removing it from the last room.