Chipwood wallpaper removal

Jimbeam3678

Jimbeam3678

Jimbeam3678

Soldato
Joined
8 Dec 2002
Posts
22,108
Location
North Yorkshire
We have the envious job of removing chipwood wallpaper from our bedroom. What tips do you any of you have?
So far Google has suggested:-
  • Score the wallpaper with one of strange looking devices with 3 wheels on them
  • Spray walls with warm water and wallpaper remover liquid via a garden sprayer
  • Long handled wallpaper scraper
  • Hire a steamer
Anything else? Anyone have any real world experiences of what not to do and what to do? Should mention we are going to get it reskimmed after we have removed it all.

Thanks in advance
 
Depends on the paper, how many times it’s been decorated, the adhesive and what it’s adhered to.

One house fairly modern simple steamer came off in massive sheets, another house hours and hours on one wall scraping away.

Wood chip was used to cover bad plaster so expect horrors underneath
 
I had excellent results just spraying with warm water and a scraper.
A steamer can blow old plaster but if skimming over after may not be an issue.

I have a lot of this to remove this year, walls and ceilings.
 
We had woodchip wallpaper in most of the rooms of our house when we moved in. I'd planned to replaster anyway as there was artex on the ceiling, coving to change, new skirting and you could see the condition wasn't great. The quickest way is to use one of THESE to perforate the paper and then a decent steamer and then some sort of heavy duty scraper, they sell replacement blades that are about 40p each so I was swapping them out after each room.

It all depends on what's underneath the woodchip and how long it's been on, our living room took about 45 minutes per 1m length of wall but another bedroom took about 15 minutes per 1m length and it came off a lot easier. It's absolutely horrible stuff and I think you'd really struggle to get it all off without needing to skim the wall at a minimum.
 
Slam62 said:
The strange device and some chemicals, easy peasy
Click to expand...
What chemicals ?

Maccapacca said:
Depends on the paper, how many times it’s been decorated, the adhesive and what it’s adhered to.

One house fairly modern simple steamer came off in massive sheets, another house hours and hours on one wall scraping away.

Wood chip was used to cover bad plaster so expect horrors underneath
Click to expand...
At least 2 coats of paint as in the cupboards they haven't bothered repainting it so its a lovely sky blue ...

Peerzy said:
We had woodchip wallpaper in most of the rooms of our house when we moved in. I'd planned to replaster anyway as there was artex on the ceiling, coving to change, new skirting and you could see the condition wasn't great. The quickest way is to use one of THESE to perforate the paper and then a decent steamer and then some sort of heavy duty scraper, they sell replacement blades that are about 40p each so I was swapping them out after each room.

It all depends on what's underneath the woodchip and how long it's been on, our living room took about 45 minutes per 1m length of wall but another bedroom took about 15 minutes per 1m length and it came off a lot easier. It's absolutely horrible stuff and I think you'd really struggle to get it all off without needing to skim the wall at a minimum.
Click to expand...
Sounds the same as our room, artex on ceiling, coving to be replaced and skirting boards. Fun fun!
 
Bear in mind that with the steamer, you will probably damage the plaster underneath if the paper is a pig to get off. Not a problem if you're going to get it reskimmed anyway.
 
You will hate every second of it, i'm currently removing this from my mums flat and it's painstaking work. Planning on reskimming too, don't want to wreck the plaster underneath so no steam. If you can get away with using steam it will probably be the easiest/fastest method.

Easiest method I've found is taking off the raised wood bits with a heavy duty scraper first, this then allows the perforator to penetrate the wallpaper and any backing paper, soak it in warm water mixed with the chemical stripper and then go back at it with the scraper.

Chemicals - https://www.screwfix.com/p/zinsser-dif-wallpaper-stripper-concentrate-1ltr/8421j
Scorer - https://www.screwfix.com/p/zinsser-paper-tiger-scoring-tool-3mm/3469h
Heavy Duty Scraper - https://www.screwfix.com/p/heavy-duty-scraper-4/16530

Basically a combo of these two methods:

 
I used a bog standard steamer. The paper came off with a load of plaster though: could hear the plaster popping off the wall as the steamer heated it.

Pretty sure there was no scenario in which we weren't going to have to skim the walls anyway though.
 
I did our entire house and I really think the fear is massively exaggerated, I criss cross scored the walls with the corner of my scraper and then steamed and scraped it off yes it took time and was messy but it wasn't the monumental effort some seem to describe it as. If your steam strip any wall paper I would be expecting to either re-skim or re-paper you are very unlikely in a house of any age to get away with stripping the walls and then painting them if you are after a really good finish.
 
Our house was covered in woodchip, it was in every room, I used a steamer and the heavy duty scraper a few have linked to in here (aptly named as the scraper of doom!) and with a lot of elbow grease plus plenty of patching in plaster later we've managed to remove it, wood chip really is the spawn of the devil and I've said on many occasions that whoever invented it may they rot in hell and be buggered with spiky pineapples by the devil (ode to South Park there)
 
I did the three wheeled scorer and spray route on a 4m x 4m room and had it skimmed. Wasn't too bad really.
Depends on how good the adhesive is. Some places it just peeled off no issue, other places it was a bit of a pig. Wouldn't have been worth getting a steamer in my case.
 
Jimbeam3678 said:
We have the envious job of removing chipwood wallpaper from our bedroom. What tips do you any of you have?
So far Google has suggested:-
  • Score the wallpaper with one of strange looking devices with 3 wheels on them
  • Spray walls with warm water and wallpaper remover liquid via a garden sprayer
  • Long handled wallpaper scraper
  • Hire a steamer
Anything else? Anyone have any real world experiences of what not to do and what to do? Should mention we are going to get it reskimmed after we have removed it all.

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
I would imagine you'll have to use all 3. The problem you have is that not only is a wood chip but that the paste that was used in those days actually worked as it should do. Not like the stuff these days that mostly water
 
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