Advice on Stripping

malamute

Bet that grabbed your attention but disappointedly its wallpaper and lots of it!!
Bought a black and decker wallpaper steamer as per picture

have i made the right choice and also any tips on making best use of the device.
Have removed the wallpaper by hand in a small room and it took ages hence the purchase.

redmatchstickman

will be so much easier now. just fill with water, wait for it to start steaming and off u go. jjust hold it over a particular section for a few seconds, not too long or the plaster underneath may come away too, but long enough to loosen the paper, try a few seconds 5-10 and see how much it loosens paper. work in vertical lines, about 3 steamer heads wide, if u go top to bottom as your scrapng, you need a scraper thing(??) u will be able to see what your doing. it is so easy tho. the room will get very hot and moist so may need to open windows, and wet paper everywhere you will need to collect and bin or will dry suck to the floor and walls. u will need an old towel or dishcloth to mop up exess water . happy steaming.

misgrace

Depending on what the paper is, but if its woodchip or embossed and not vinyl, the trick is to do one wall at a time.
This is what I do,I fill the steamer up and let it come to the boil lol, whilst I'm waiting for it to heat up, I score the wall in big crisscrosses, get a bucket of very hot soapy water, and slap the soapy water on with a big brush, let that soak into the paper, sometimes it pays to go back over it again, or if you dont want to the soak whole wall all at once, then just perhaps soak 4 or 5 strips of a paper at a time, till you gauge how its going.
When the steamer is ready, the paper is already wet, I then go over the paper with the plate, like OP says, dont leave the plate on the one area too long.
The paper comes off very easy doing it like this.

BTW, you could also use fabric conditioner rather than soapy water, this softens the paper, plus you will get a lovely smell.:D

nickj_2

don't leave the steamer in one pklace for too long as this will blow the plaster ,also see if the front of the paper will peel off and just leave the backing which can be soaked and stripped easily .

Shermanator

I have just moved into a house and stripped all the wallpaper in every room. Yes it was a bit of an effort with the quantity, but the removal itself was pretty easy.

1. Try to remove the top layer of the paper (as stated in previous post)
2. Get a bucket of hot (as you can handle) water mixed with fabric conditioner (Lenor/Comfort etc)
3. Soak the walls with it using a cloth, don't wring it out, start at the top and the water will run down the rest of the wall and then follow it with the cloth
4. Be patient ! Wait about 5 mins and then start stripping it, should come ff easily

Note, if the top layer will not come off, repeat step 2 to 4, and then repeat for the second layer

HTH

toffeegirl

All of the above.

Plus:

- set yourself targets of how much to do each session e.g. number of widths to strip.
- tea breaks are best taken whilst the reservoir is refilled and reboiling
- if you have newspaper which you can lay out on the floor to catch the bits, it makes tidying a lot easier. If you can throw bits straight into a rubbish bag all the better
- as well as drinking copious amounts of tea between reservoir refills, use the time to tidy what you have done so far. Its awful to finish the stripping part and then have loads of tidying to do at the end.
- I prefer to start at the top and work down.... when stripping....wallpaper....

Finally be careful not to 'burn' yourself.

Good luck.