How to strip woodchip wallpaper
OK I have a hidden agenda posting this right now. Was checking the sites logs and had a hit from Google for “how to strip woodchip” and another for “removal of woodchip wallpaper”, so checked the SERPs in Google and this site is number 1 and 10ish for the two SERPs 
By posting this post about woodchip wallpaper we should keep those SERPs long term (that’s the theory anyway).
I guess the poor people searching for a way to strip woodchip wallpaper didn’t find the site too helpful, so I’m hoping a combination of our hard earned knowledge and maybe someone kind enough to comment on how to do it without replastering will step up (hint, hint :-))
The house we are renovating has a fair amount of woodchip wallpaper, it’s a 4 storey house (with high ceilings) so it has at least the equivalent of a 3 bedroom house worth of woodchip wall paper to remove!
We started the job completely unprepared in what we are calling the Blue Room (it has a lot of blue paint, so the blue room). The plan was for the wife and kids to strip the wallpaper, but they caught me off guard and visited the house a few days earlier than I’d estimated. So I hadn’t bought any tools for wallpaper removal, I had some trowel like scrapers somewhere, but couldn’t find them (still not found them now).
So I popped around to Jewson’s in Skegness and bought some quite expensive (£10 each!) wallpaper scrapers. In hindsight they are the sort of scrapers that are better suited to filling small nail holes in walls than wall paper stripping, but these are the sort of scrapers I recall my Mum using for wallpaper removal years ago so assumed they are right for the job (they aren’t!!). Also bought a couple of sponges (that haven’t been used yet) and we had a garden water sprayer at the house already.
We started by scratching the wallpaper with wire brushes, Jewsons didn’t have the proper wallpaper scorers so we improvised. We then sprayed and rolled (used an old paint roller with water instead of paint) water onto the scratched paper.
As it happens the room we started in has the hardest woodchip wallpaper to remove in the house (typical or what!!!), but one wall had standard flat wallpaper and after scratching and wetting it came off quite easily. The woodchip though had been painted with vinyl silk paint, so wasn’t absorbing much water.
We all took a crack at those walls (two adults and three kids), but progress was REALLY SLOW. By the time we left we’d not finished one woodchip wall!
The following day we visited B&Q in Grimsby which has a much better range of products than Jewson’s in Skegness. We bought a couple more of the scrapers, though this time not expensive, a proper wallpaper scorer and some sharp wallpaper scrapers with 6″ blades. We also bought a wallpaper steamer, but it didn’t work at all (no heat, so must have been broken so got a refund).
The sharp wallpaper scrapers are no comparison to the blunt ones we first tried, the sharp ones (costs less than £5 each from B&Q) which is basically a T shaped tool with the top being a 6″ sharp blade (that’s replaceable, with new blades costing just over £1 each) and the shaft of the T a long handle.
With little elbow grease you can strip almost any textured wallpaper to the backing paper, (it’s not so good on flat wallpaper though) so the face of the woodchip is easily removed leaving just bits of flatish (woodchip free) paper backing stuck to the wall. In some areas it all came off, but where it was stuck down well, had we tried to remove it we’d have damaged the plaster.
So far we’ve removed around 80% of the woodchip facing and around 30% of the backing. This was without the use of water or a steamer. We are in two minds what to do next, we could use water/steam since the paint free wallpaper backing will easily absorb water now and so shouldn’t be too difficult to remove.
However since the house is over one hundred years old the plaster finish has seen better days, so unless we plan to re skim a lot of the walls the finish will be low quality. We are considering leaving the paper backing as it is (tidy it a little of course) and add thick lining paper over it which we can paint. I’ve never used lining paper before, so not sure how forgiving it is?
If that doesn’t work if we want a good finish I’ll have to re skim the walls (I’ve never plastered before either, but really want to learn).
If anyone has any thoughts on this please comment.
Another alternative is to plasterboard over most of the walls. Plasterboard isn’t very expensive and we’d get a smooth finish. I know it means repositioning light sockets and the skirting boards (considering replacing those anyway) so more work, but I want this to be a quality job (plan to live there).
Update: We took a crack at removing the remaining backing from the woodchip wallpaper left over by those sharp scraper using the wet and scrape technique. We had an entire room (living room) with high ceilings to do and it took about 5 hours for the two of us!! Basic proceedure was wet the walls a few times and scrape with the sharp scrapers. It was far from easy work and as I’m the tallest (Cameron is short for a 14 year old, so couldn’t do a high ceiling wall) I had to do all the high parts. By the end of the day my shoulders where burning!!
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March 31, 2006at 4:32 pm
[...] The woodchip image to the right is around 5 hours stripping work by one adult!! Just wouldn’t come off with the scrapers we had. What is it with woodchip wallpaper, it’s the most ugly wallcovering ever invented, yet every place that’s more than 5yrs old I’ve lived in seems to be covered in it!! Little update to this post: We’ve bought some better tools for stripping wallpaper, read about it under How to strip woodchip wallpaper. [...]
July 6, 2006at 2:43 pm
Well Thank for all your information my husband and myself going to start this saturday to strip that horrible wallpaper so I
need of all the information i could have and i didint find that much.
For everything I read it make my stomach ache is not an easy task so now i dont know if we are really brave o really stupid but anyway someone have to do the dirty job.
So i will let you know if your recommendations work with our walls.
July 7, 2006at 6:24 am
Glad the info helps, been so busy not had time to update our final technique so here it is.
With Woodchip wallpaper that’s painted with a silk finish (water doesn’t penetrate easily) we used the large scrapers to remove the woodchip layer. This left the paper backing with a small amount of chips. If you planned to re wallpaper I think a little preparation removing the remaining chips with the large sharp scrapers would allow you to paper directly over the backing paper (assuming it’s stuck down well).
We decided to paint directly on plaster (so re skimming problem areas), so we first tried soaking the walls with water and then using the large scrapers to remove the wet backing paper, it works, but is very slow going/hard work. So we bought another wall paper steamer (the first one we tried didn’t work) and dug out an old one I forgot we had (thought I’d thrown it out years ago).
These made easy work of the backing paper, even our youngest son (10yrs old) can use the steamers. We’ve removed around about 95% of wallpaper from the house now, just little bits left where we’ve been storing materials etc…
Now it’s all about plastering to get a good finish as most of the walls are far from paintable, unless you want that rustic finish (no thanks :-).
David
September 9, 2006at 5:56 am
Wish I had seen these postings before today. Three bedroom house, built in 1974 layers of paint on top of woodchip - how I hate the stuff - I have a very rude name for it now. I have tried, as the first person had, scsoring the paper and using a steamer - the paper came off, but so did the top layer of plasterboard underneath it. The I tried the B&Q scraper, dry (not the sharp blade one) and hours of patience and swearing again (My language leaves a great deal to be desired) huge sheets of the stuff came off. By lifting a corner at skirting board level and gradually prizing it off the wall, I was able to pull the sheets, intact, from floor to ceiling - hooray. Unfortunately, this only works if the paper has been on the wall for years and been painted many times. I guess the paste had perished and the paint made it more like hard board than paper. The rooms that had been re-woodchipped (why anyone would do that is beyond me) are a nightmare. Only a couple of layers of matt emulsion paint and the job is getting me down. The plaster board is damaged and I am seriously considering [a] sanding the woodchip down and then putting lining paper under the new covering or [b] paying a plasterer to lightly skim the walls over the damage and remaining woodchip. I am not sure if either of these two options would work because I have a feeling that the new paper would not stick. Hey ho, perhaps someone out there can help. By the way, the T shaped tool with replaceable blade is amazing, but dont leave it lying around as it is very very sharp. Thanks. Doreen
September 9, 2006at 8:06 am
Hi Doreen
I’ve tried plastering over small bits of woodchip wallpaper (little bits of backing mainly) and as you are skimming the woodchip paper comes away making a big mess! So I wouldn’t go with that as an option.
We’ve used the B&Q sharp scrapers (saw some 4″ scrapers in ASDA the other day, though the 6″ ones from B&Q are better) to remove the woodchip and a steamer to remove the remaining paper, it’s not easy work, but even our youngest son (9 years old) has been able to help.
Unless you are really, really careful you will damage the plaster so some filling or reskimming if very bad is needed. If the plaster underneath wasn’t very good (reason for adding woodchip maybe!) then the only realistic way to get a paintable finish is to re skim.
With some walls where the plaster is quite good we’ve just patched the holes. We’ve tried all sorts of products, bought the new stuff advertised on TV from Polyfilla (they make it look really easy on TV :-)) but I didn’t think much of it, didn’t blend well at edges.
What we use now is plasterboard joint filler compound, it’s meant for when you plasterboard and you want to join two boards together seamlessly. I found it goes on better than any other product tried and lasts for ages (so you have time to work with it, you have to mix it and leave it for 45 mins before use so has to last a while).
We buy the large bags from B&Q for around £19, we use it for joints as well, but this would be enough to do several houses if all you was doing is filling small holes and scratch marks.
I’ll check what the stuff is called exactly and post it here.
I found using a joint filer tool the best way to use it, this is like the scrapers you probably used years back for scraping wallpaper. The one I used was specifically designed for filling joints, so is far more flexible than a standard scraper thingy
Bought it from B&Q for about £5, has a blue handle.
You might also find an Artex joint filler tool helpful (not sure what it’s called) as well, this is a rectangular piece of flexible plastic (one we have is made by Artex and is red, cost a few pounds). This is useful for covering larger areas of damaged plaster.
If you plan to re paper or plan to line the wall and paint you should consider PVAing the walls first. PVA is a glue, so if the walls aren’t going to adhere to the paper well PVAing will almost certainly solve the problem.
Actually a wall should ideally be PVA’d prior to skimming and painting as well. We’ve had major problems where someone (years ago) has re skimmed the walls onto what looks like emulsion paint and the new skim just has bonded to the walls! Had they PVA’d first it would probably be fine now.
Note: you aren’t supposed to PVA a re skimmed wall for I think 3 months (has to dry out first).
Good luck
David
September 20, 2006at 11:55 am
hi i am just moving into a new home that has woodchip walls just an email to ask if u could give me any easy tips on how to remove the stuff as i am not looking forward to it thankyou.
September 20, 2006at 8:59 pm
See above, that’s near enough everything I know about removing that type of wallpaper.
Good luck
David
January 3, 2007at 8:02 am
Glad to see i’m not the only one that hates wood chip walls. i’ve just spent the past 18 months renovating my victorian flat (complete with every “fashionable” upgrade since 1920). When it comes to this stuff my formula for a perfect finish is to simply remove it all and replace it or:
(a)Walk into your newly acquried property and hire a skip
(b)select an area to refurb bearing in mind any wiring requests, (e.g shared sockets, aerial splices between rooms, alarm system wire hiding etc).
(c)test the walls by pushing the lathe plaster with your hand patricularly near windows/boilers or any heat exit/entrance, if it deflects under light pressure, grab a flat faced garden spade, smack it hard off the wall and use it too scrape ALL the plaster off. (Note: seal all doors prior to this and open all windows, wear a mask!). Do this for the whole wall. It is a lot easier/cheaper to replace a whole wall than it is to patch and repair quarter a wall. finish will be better too.
(d) Have a joiner Re-rig and/or prepare/repair wooden frames if yours is looking ropey, fix this to brickwork and remove all lathework plus nails
(e) Buy new plasterboard ensuring all holes for sockets etc are in roughly the area thats needed. Cut to rough size for the room (within 5mm of each other) and Screw in with plaster screws long enough to penetrate wooden rig. Dont use nails or anything metal that rusts. TIP: buy polyproylene backed thermal plasterboard for extra insulation on the ceiling and/or foil backed plasteroard for walls. Use this opportunity to pack voids with rockwool and rewire the walls/seal up old fireplaces etc). For ceiling plastering you will need a plasterboard leveling and lifting tool. origin unknown ask Jewsons. I used Wolsely for hardware.
(f) After studying the plasterers trade, who came round to skim my walls, go to hardware store, buy plaster mix, noting that “filler” plaster mix is grey and pretty much is light cement and that the final coat is the finishing plaster mix, normally pinkish/brownish. This dries to a dirty white colour. One is rough, the other smooth. One is used for filling holes, the other to give a paintable surface. You get the idea. If you want to, buy the steel grating to sharpen wall corners, nail to the wooden beading. Tape up edges of, with the textured tape to give smooth transition. Fill in large holes with plasterboard. Plaster over with the correct mix and flat levelled tools, wetting edges when complete, sanding when dry.Seal up any doors etc prior to this extremly messy affair. The fine plaster dust will, repeat, will, cover the whole house plus the garden shed.
(g) leave all new plaster for 4 DAYS (not months!) minimum or until is obviously dry (white colour)
(h) seal with PVA glue or diluted wallpaper paste or two coats of cheap paint to form a uniform layer of identical porosity, this gives uniform absorption and drying times for your final coat of paint. The reason for sealing is all about paint application and avoiding those dark patches that appear when your admiring your so called handy work 6 months down the line…
(i) paint your final colour, leave for a week to dry, paint again if needed! buy water based paint for easy dilution and clean up. mop the floors at least 4 times to remove plaster dust/paint. (saves cleaning the whole property 20 times).
(j) if wall paper or wood chip exists, a steamer is a definite must have, plus two scrapers, a 24 pack of beer, some smokes and 3 of your mates. dont scrape if your going to remove the wall anyhow! i remove it all, dont waste your elbow grease and risk denting the plaster which would require further skimmining anyhow, rip it off and bin it once and for all………
(k) if you wish, remove all skirting boards to re-route wires, note that for newly cut, typical victorian style skirting boards will cost you £500 (fitted) for a lounge sized room. £300 machine set up and fabrciation, plus £150 for quality fit. Note this is pretty expensive but looks the part and will last another 100 years…..professionally stripping paint from existing skirting boards will cost you £200 anyhow……failing that sand and paint with matt paint. (vinyl will make future colour changes a nightmare).
(l) buy old style victorian doors from an antique refurbisher. mine cost £150 but looks 1000% better than old shoddy 1960’s door that was in its place.
(m) investigate uneven flooring, could be wet joists, remove and replace with new, replace uneven floor with chip board and/or new wood. cover the whole lot in 6mm plywood to even out, tile on top with some nice black granite floor tiles. thats what i did and it looks hot. everyone that comes round loves them. will last for years too. (i installed £300 underfloor heating, piece of cake to install and ace in the morning on your cold feet! consists of a single wire electrcially wired and runs through 3 rooms)
(n) sit back, have a drink in the new pad and watch your friends (who have newly acquired “properties to renovate”) become envious at your advanced state of property development.
January 13, 2007at 10:47 am
The T-shaped scrapers you mentioned are wonderful! We have just finished taking the woodchip off our large lounge. Took two of us two days, we thought it would take two weeks after the nightmare of removing the stuff from the dining room! Anyway, we had initially bought the Wallwik system which had limited success (soaked sheets adhering to scored woodchip) but found the T-shaped scrapers more efficient.
We did not wet the walls at all. We cut the woodchip and then got the scraper under it and it more or less fell off. We cleared that lot up, put towels on the carpet and sprayed the remaining layer with warm water and Wallwik solution, left it 5 minutes and lifted (scrape would be too strong a word) the remaining paper off.
Thanks again for your tips, hopefully this will help others facing the dreaded woodchip paper!
January 30, 2007at 7:36 pm
All sounds so familiar having just tackled 2 bedrooms covered in painted woodchip! I must say that I found using the heavier duty ‘razor’ stripper much better than the traditional scraper. I got into the routine of scoring the papaer, soaking with hot water/ Dif solution then leaving to soak 15mins then repeating. The paper then stripped off, although in small bits and with hours of effort. I am looking forward to try the Wallwik solution technique above…. as I still have much more of the dreaded stuff to strip. I will let you know what I think in a couple of weeks!
February 13, 2007at 1:03 pm
We are in the process of stripping woodchip wallpaper with several layers of paint on it. I have found a method that works really well and takes very little effort although it is time-consuming and requires a lot of patience.
Using a steamer and an ordinary wallpaper scraper, I’ve found that, if I start at the top of the wall, and hold the steamer there for quite a long time; (a little bit longer than you’ve just imagined!), I can ease the scraper under the edge of the paper. By llifting up one side of the steamer, I can continue to gently ease the scraper further under the paper, without pulling the paper off the wall at this point. When a good sized piece of the paper has been loosened, hold the top of the paper and position the steamer below it. Then gently peel the paper away from the wall, keeping the steamer just below it but moving the steamer very, very slowly down the wall as the paper comes away. I have peeled away a whole sheet of paper this way from the top of the wall to the very bottom. It came away cleanly without leaving any ‘bits’ on the wall and looks almost as though it could be re-used as wallpaper; not that anyone would want to!
March 10, 2007at 3:06 pm
Hi
I’ve just finished renovating my victorian town house and removed lots of old wallpaper. My advice is get a decent steamer and all wallpaper comes off with relative ease including woodchip. Incidentally if you use decent woodchip (not the poor penny pinched product in B&Q, Focus etc) sourced such as Anaglypta brand or the trade brand MAV Professional the appearance is much better and in fact it can be ‘in period’ for houses up to 60 or less years old, covers poor walls effectively and is recycled so at least its eco friendly!
If you want to cover over poor plaster and create a lovely flat wall, there are 2 products available from Independent stores that work really well - ‘wallrock’I, which I think is another MAV Professional product and also 1700 grade lining paper which I bought in my local Crown Decorator Centre.
Good luck, Drew
March 22, 2007at 8:49 am
We are in the middle of renovating our 2 bedroom house. It seemed all pretty to start with but every wall had wallpaper (not to my taste) or lining paper that was peeling in places. So last summer we decided to tackle the two bedrooms. I started on a small wall in the little room which has a damaged wall where the original owners took out a wardrobe, its left enough problems that we have to get it re-plastered along with the ajoining wall in our bedroom. Me and my husband spent two weekends stripping wallpaper and a thin layer of lining paper underneath but we were proud when it was finished. Our bedroom was easier as the walls aren’t in bad condition and most of the paper peeled off.
Now my husband has decided to look at stripping all the woodchip wallpaper from our living room and two hallways. At first I thought, he had a point, it looks ugly, no colour we’ve painted over it looks good and its starting to peel away at the bottom. But now after months of waiting for a decorator to offer is advice with how long it will take and the problems that will probably happen. Nothing has really started. We got a quote from said decorator for £1100 to strip all the paper and PVA and then plaster the walls afterwards ready for painting. My husband seems to think this is reasonable considering the hassle involved.
But doesn’t anyone know if thats a good price or not? We’re expecting our first baby in July and wanted it all finished back in January. I just don’t want them stripping it all off and saying all the walls need re-skimming when a little patching up would do.
Does anyone have any ideas.
Thanks Gemma
April 2, 2007at 3:21 am
We moved into a 1930s house full of woodchip we researched the Internet and found an american idea which has saved our sanity not to mention our bank balance. The name of the product is wallwick, they sell the whole kit if you need it, however some walls did still need skimming due to the fact we had years worth of woodchip layers to remove but it is certainly much easier than steaming and believe me we tried everything this was the only thing that worked for us its well worth a try.
Good Luck!
Jean
April 25, 2007at 3:45 am
what about sanding it?
April 25, 2007at 3:47 am
u know with a powerfull sander? hell i say that as i sit here covered in matt emulsion…basicaly putibg up with it for another tear, i mean year ha classic mistake there.. hey same thing. ye my sis says a matt emulsion wont put as much emphasis on it as a silk….yeh trust it to be on the one wll i have to face…. fen shui or wat!
April 26, 2007at 3:48 pm
I have just stripped a 3 bed terraced house of woodchip wallpaper - it was on the wall for over 20 years that I know off, and painted over numerous times, ceilings included. Here’s how I did it….
I hired 2 wallpaper strippers from HSS Hire (I didnt want to mess about the with ones you buy from the diy stores, I didnt think they would be heavy duty enough). I then paid a 20 year old lad (plenty of strength and stamina, on basic wages) to help myself and my other half to strip the whole house.I scored the paper with the edge of the wallpaper stripper in diagonal scores about 3 inches apart, and soaked the paper with a sponge using Polycell wallpaper stripper liquid (available at diy stores). If the paper is soaked enough the top layer will peel off easily.
My house was built in 1890, once the woodchip came off, the plaster behind was shot, so I am having the whole house re-skimmed, with the thanks to a helpful and good plasterer.
You can patch up holes in old plaster using Easy fill available from B&Q and Dulux Decorating Centres, then you paint on a green grit/gel like stuff called ‘Bond-It’, so the new plaster can key or bind on to the walls. It really is not that hard to do.
Good luck and lets ban wallpaper from this country all together I sayl…
April 28, 2007at 7:01 am
We’re slowly getting to grips with our house (a limited budget leaves us no other option than to do it one room at a time, spread over several months) and we’re finding woodchip in _all_ our rooms, even under what seems to be fairly normal wallpaper.
But the worst thing is really the woodchip paper on the ceilings. I’ve just spend the best part of 3 hours scraping and steaming, and I’ve got about 1/8th of the ceiling ‘done’ (yes, in quotes, because it looks like a mess.)
This is the first place I’ve read about the wallwik product, however, so I’m going to have a look to see if our local B&Q or Homebase stock this miracle product. It almost looks too good to be true.
October 21, 2007at 9:30 pm
Just had the horris taskofstrpping woodchip from my living room walls, and such have discovered the best tool ever for the job,
Screwfix sell an electric scraper/chisel with 5 attachments and its worth its weight in gold i didnt even have to wet the walls just go careful not to damage the walls with it if you plan to paint them, i done a large living room in a day.
i have also used it to remove left over tile adhesive on the walls in the bathroom.
Cost = £60 well worth it.
December 6, 2007at 7:13 pm
I found using a steamer such as those HSS hire to be fine for getting woodchip of walls. I found I could rip off an outer layer of the paper by hand very quickly, then steam the layer underneath and scrape it away quite easily.
The problem is using a steamer on the ceiling. And I’m not just talking about how much it hurts your shoulders. Whether it’s gravity or that the plaster is not as good, the steamer is not a good idea.
After starting the ceiling steaming, I heard a couple of cracks from above, and realised, by putting my hand against this part of the ceiling, that the plaster had come away from the floor slab above (I live in a four storey block of flats). The plaster has stayed up there, but with a crack across, and it will, I assume, eventually fall down.
So I’m going to have to tackle the woodchip on the ceiling another way. Probably using a combination of the many methods listed above, but unfortunately, not using a steamer.
December 17, 2007at 12:04 pm
I moved into a new house recently and its got woodchip in every room and in the hallway (very high ceilings and I am now dreading what I thought was going to be a fairly straightforward job after reading all your comments. I think I will invest in one of those skrewfix electric scrapers for £60 patch up any holes with easyfill , paint on “bond it” and look into wallwick. If all that fails, I am going to get a bank loan to employ someone to do the whole lot. Any idea how much this might cost ? It might be worth it for my body and sanity ! I hate the woodchip !
January 3, 2008at 9:11 am
Well thanks for all the tips guys…I’m about to strip a bedroom of the dreaded woodchip and now I think it might be a bit easier. I was just going to wet the walls and try to scrape…Fool ! Yes it’s been there for years and yes it’s been painted over numerous times,once by myself I admit. So wish me luck…Shall we start a ’stop selling woodchip campaign’ and save others the pain and strife of going through it ?
January 4, 2008at 12:44 pm
Is anyone free to help with scraping wood chip wall paper off ! ?
January 4, 2008at 2:35 pm
No help required now I’ve just realised the scrapers blade was in the wrong way ! doh ! Its now like a walk in the park !
I can highly recommend washing up liquid and hot water on scored walls over night . Use a heavy duty scraper with sharp blade (make sure the sharp end is in place!) which you will find at B&Q and off you go…… motivational music to carry you through the low points is a must.
January 17, 2008at 7:23 pm
just trying to stip the woodchip wallpaper and found polystyrene (thermal lining) underneath it. It looks tricky to remove and it is keeping the room warm. Suggestions please. Could we paint over the horrible woodchip, which looks dated (yuck!) or should everything come off the wall and start on a clean template which means putting back thermal lining and wallpaper (sounds a big job). Ideas please
Yours
Stuck in the middle.
January 31, 2008at 9:05 pm
I am a painter and decorater from chester and i know the answer of striping woodchip. There is only one way’ go to B&Q and buy a scowrer also nown as a tiger use it by scowring the wall wit it and the blades on it will leave holes in the woodchip ‘ now use a 8 inch brush and warm water along with this stuff called paste destroyer it comes in a orange bottle anyway the water falls behind the holes you have scowerd in the woodchip and breaks down the paste’ you will need to scower it a few times just keep scowring it then soaking it one aftyer another till the paper is EASY to pull of ‘ people think they have to use loads of elbow grease YOU DONT just let the water and paste destroyer do the job for you. Alos i noitced that in the comments on this page people talk about putting linning paper over other backing paper that is already on the wall DO NOT DO THIS as it will bubble and mess up everything ALWAYS strip all walls sand caulk and paper properly any questions ask me at chesterpainters@hotmail.co.uk
February 4, 2008at 11:48 am
All the advise about removing woodchip is great. i’m definately going to look in to getting that Wallwick product. I have woodchip on my hall, stairs, landing and 3 bedrooms. I have begun taking it off the hall walls etc and it appears the walls were never plastered. Does anyone know if there is anyway that I might be able to avoid having the whole thing plastered and just use a heavy linning paper instead and paint onto that?
April 7, 2008at 2:20 am
Ah well, all of your previous comments says it all. It now seems to me that the best way to get rid of woodchip is to torch your house and build it from scratch. The fact that I’ve had to research it on the net means it is a very hard problem to resolve. If I come up with a quick solution, I’ll drop a hint or two, which I very much doubt! Take care all you fellow ‘woodchippers’ out there
April 15, 2008at 10:37 pm
I hate stripping wallpaper, especially woodchip. I have just stripped my staircase and landing. I found the best way was to use a power scraper, basically just a handle with a stanley blade on the end. I found long smooth motions where the most effective, bringing huge chunks off in one go, leaving just paint to strip off underneath. I then skimmed over the walls and are now ready to paint. Took about 4 days to stip, 2 days to plaster, and a week to fix the plastering
I wonder if it would work to just leave the woodchip on, and drill hundreds of holes in the wall, then just plaster over the whole lot, so the plaster would grip into the holes meaning the weight wouldnt be on the woodchip?
April 29, 2008at 9:31 am
Hamilton razor sharp wallpaper stripper from B&Q. Need I say more. Used B&Q’s own and some other good quality makes. This kicks their arse. Strips the top layer off instantly, no water etc needed, then just use the steamer, couple of secconds in one spot and comes off. No need to score the wallpeper, no need to wet, or use products. This razor sharp Hamilton stripper does the job easy. get it on the right angle, and it takes off half of the underlay off too, so dont even have to steam half the wall. So so so so much better than any other toll ive tried. £5, and replacement blades are 1.50. Unlike the others, when this blunts eventually, even tho very hard wearing, u just replace the blade, job done, unlike the others where u have to buy it all again.
May 1, 2008at 5:44 pm
I heard that using fabric softener in the water you put on the wall really helps too
May 11, 2008at 8:32 pm
WOODCHIP ANSWER - There’s definetly no quick and no easy way to remove this hideous stuff and I think it really depends the surface to which the woodchip is stuck. On our internal walls it comes off not too bad but on stone walls it’s murder. Our 3 bedroom house had woodchip on ALL ceilings and walls!! - For some reason we didn’t really notice it’s omnipresence when we viewed! 18months on I’m scraping the last room. I use the big scraper blades from B&Q and then am left with the horrible orangey coloured layer below the paper which then comes of really easily when soaked and left for 15mins although it’s still horribly sticky. We’ve had all our rooms and hall etc skimmed afterwards which is expensive but the best quality finish possible. I’ll join any ban woodchip campaign life is too short to spend your weekends doing this. Happy scraping!
May 31, 2008at 9:57 am
When woodchip wallpaper is so firmly fixed to the wall (or ceiling) that removal is going to be a major task, I have found that a far simpler and quicker solution is to skim over it with plaster.
This makes sense, especially when the woodchip has been painted over and is rock hard. Instead of mounting a major assault on it, why not take advantage of it as a rock hard sealed foundation that the plaster skim will readily key to.
By the way, this approach is even more suitable for Artex walls. Because of the asbestos content, it is seriously dangerous to your health to disturb Artex by sanding, scraping, cutting, drilling, etc, so a plaster skim is usually the best solution.
I have had such skimming done by plasterers, who make it look easy - even to ceilings, when I told the plasterer that I would accept the risk of it falling down - the result was excellent.
I have now begun to do such skimming myself. Skimming is one of those skills that you need to learn and practise before you start a full-scale job. There is now plenty of good guidance on the web. Start small!
Now, having read in this forum about other methods of removing woodchip, I will try out one or two in suitable cases. However, if the whole process is going to end up with re-plastering the wall when the woodchip has been removed after blood, sweat and tears, then missing out the blood, sweat and tears seems to me to be a better way of doing it!
July 12, 2008at 6:39 am
1st tip patience. 2nd tip no need for fancy expensive tools. if you use a scraper and try to ram it off, you will be there all day and will end up with blisters.
bear in mind woodchip like all papers is made up in layers. peel off the top layer, the bit that has been painted and doesnt let the water through and youve cracked it (lots of bits but they are dry).- a damp sponge on what is left behind takes no time to scrape off (and its not a sloppy mess).
i make start point - at waist / chest height usually the edge of a strip where you can get the corner of a ’scraper’ in, lift it, and begin tearing - with your hand - not the scraper - if your lucky you can get a good strip off all in one go. but you need to perservere. by standing you save your back from bending too much or stretching and you’ll be surprised how far you can go, before you get on your knees or the ladder to do the tops and bottoms.
i did a 15 x 12 lounge ceiling (not the easiest of tasks) in a couple of hours - not bad going. that was back breaking - you just have to take a deep breath and go for it. (knowing there is an ice cold beer in the fridge awaiting you - might be some incentive)
good luck - and dont give up!!