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Original poster

What is so bad about woodchip wall coverings?

27 replies

petersham · 05/12/2011 11:54

I have a large expanse of it in prominent parts of the house. It has been caked in inoffensive coloured paint by previous owners several times over. I am still undecided as to whether I should live with it. Rest of the house has been brought up to date in small ways but the sheer volume of woodchip has put me off tacking it.

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OldLadyKnowsSantaClaus · 05/12/2011 11:55

What's bad about it is it's so hard to take off! If it's not bothering you, slap another coat of paint on and carry on.

Original poster
petersham · 05/12/2011 12:09

But it's lumpy like cottage cheese. And the paint has not really changed that. I suspect we may be talking about several layers of woodchip. How is it removed generally?

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JollySergeantJackrum · 05/12/2011 12:10

with great difficulty. hours of scraping and steaming and more scraping.

bigbadbarry · 05/12/2011 12:11

Oh it is vile to get off once painted over. Get somebody in :)

OldLadyKnowsSantaClaus · 05/12/2011 12:14

Yup, major pain in the arse to remove it. And if there are layers of it, you'll still be at it by Easter. Get someone in, or paint over it again.

PS woodchip was often used to cover up cracks or uneven plaster. Be prepared for horrors if you opt to remove it.

GrendelsMum · 05/12/2011 12:36

Yes, if you take it off, you may very speedily realise why it's been put there.

If you go in with the approach that it's going to be awful to remove, it isn't that bad - but you may be uncovering a real can of worms.

Original poster
petersham · 05/12/2011 12:41

I have just found a product on the polyfilla website which can apparently be smoothed over the woodchip but I am talking about a large hallway so I think this could be expensive!

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Imnotaslimjim · 05/12/2011 12:48

I was about to suggest the polyfilla stuff too, its expensive but worth it. B&Q did their own version but I know can't find it on the website so not sure if they still do it

VeronicaSpeedwell · 05/12/2011 12:52

I'd echo those who say it was probably put there for a reason. Don't strip it off before budgetting for a plaster skim to cover the horrors beneath. This is also extremely messy, and it's a job for which you absolutely do need a pro. However, if you are prepared to do it, your walls will delight you daily with their clean, smooth beauty (or mine do anyway).

AMumInScotland · 05/12/2011 12:53

Oh its not that bad to take off, unless they've put gloss paint on it. You just need to scratch the surface, soak it, and get a scraper to it - very therapeutic. It'll be less effort than covering it over with polyfilla gloop anyway!

But yes you'll probably find the surface underneath is poor, unless a previous owner just loved woodchip, which is unlikely!

AMumInScotland · 05/12/2011 12:55

This kind of scraper will get through the surface and let the water in.

mousysantamouse · 05/12/2011 13:05

I like woodchip paper Xmas Blush

smooth walls are also nice, but difficult to get a nice finish. and there are always cracks somewhere...

mistressploppy · 05/12/2011 13:16

I quite like woodchip too and my parents put it up in the house I grew up in, just because they liked it - the plaster was fine. So you never know....

But yeah, the walls are probably crap, TBH

ILikeToMoveItMoveIt · 05/12/2011 13:20

It looks shit and is a bastard to get off. Mind you, it's such a bastard to get off that if I had it it may have to stay. Laziness beats style in my house Blush

Original poster
petersham · 05/12/2011 13:53

It is really glossy - infact, the DCs wrote on it with permanent marker and I still managed to wipe it off. It never used to bother me at all but a rude builder mentioned that the house needed refurbishment and this was after he had completed his job so it started to bug me from then onwards

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LoonyRationalist · 05/12/2011 13:57

We bought our house in August - the previous owners loved woodchip - even all the ceilings are covered in the stuff. We are slowly removing it all & tbh the walls underneath aren't the disaster area I was expecting.

A good steamer and scraper will stand you in good stead :)

AMumInScotland · 05/12/2011 14:08

If it has been coated in gloss you definitely need the kind of scraper I linked to - it has spiky wheels which turn in all directions, which break through the waterproof paint. You have to do that before you use a steam wallpaper-stripping machine, or soak it using a bucket and sponge - the water or steam has to get right through to the glue to soften it.

You'll almost certainly find that you get the top layer of the paper off first, as that will be more solid due to all the layers of paint. Then you will have the little pieces of woodchip and the lower layer of paper still on the wall - but that layer of paper will not have any glue on it, so will be much softer.

You certainly won't get whole strips of it off the way you might with normal wallpaper, so it's more of a faff. But it does come off!

AMumInScotland · 05/12/2011 14:09

Sorry I mean it won't have paint on it, it'll certainly have glue!

Original poster
petersham · 05/12/2011 21:24

Oh no - you really Do know what you are talking about AMumInScot - that is exactly what happened with the test patch. I dont know if i'll bother - at maximum height we are talking over seven meters high - how could I ever get iup that high to work on something so stubborn. I might have done an individual room but the stairwell is just too much, what with the Christmas holidays looming!

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WithManyTots · 05/12/2011 22:28

Our house was 100% covered in wood chip, wall and ceilings!! It has taken me from 2006, but today I removed the last bit. It is slow to remove, but with the help of a steamer, you remove the top layer, then the bottom layer.

One done though, you won't regret it Smile

LoonyRationalist · 05/12/2011 22:53

Congratulations tots - there will be a champagne moment when the last piece of woodchip is removed here.

CiderwithBuda · 06/12/2011 06:04

Our house had lots of it too and I was determined it would go. DH was worried about effort involved and state of walls underneath.

Thankfully we were doing a big renovation job anyway which included burying central heating pipes and re-wiring and we were not living in house so it just went! Builder got someone to remove it. Very pleased! Previous owner of house is our neighbor and she said she hated it but it took her so long and was so hard to do the one room she did that she could never bring herself to do the rest.

Def not a job for this close to Xmas!

LikeAnAdventCandleButNotQuite · 06/12/2011 06:14

We bought an ex-rented property, and woodchip was everywhere. We wanted to remove it, as it is ghastly, and love smooth walls and nice paint. Took an age, and in some places, it had even been plastered OVER as an easier option for the Landlord. Nutter.

Was completely worth it now, after having the walls skimmed, the place is lovely, and I don;t even think about the work involved. If i'd left it, I'd spend my days thinking "this has got to come off"

PigletJohn · 06/12/2011 09:19

if you hold a steamer in one place for long, the plaster will be overheated and blow.

Woodchip is difficult to get wet enough to soften the paste. because it is usually painted and the paint stops water penetrating.

An ordinary wide metal scraper will often knock the tops off enough of the bits for water to start getting in. I prefer to use a garden sprayer, with a tiny bit of WUL in the water, and mist it again, and again, and again - never letting it dry out as you go round and round the room, and it gradually soaks in. No benefit in applying so much water that it runs down the walls onto the floor.

If you start scraping at the top, then next time you spray, some of the water will run doen behind the paper. Once you've managed to start that happening, it gets easier and easier.

If you are intending to paint the wall, you have to get all the paste off. I find this is easiest again using the sprayer and the wide metal scraper. The paste will come off like slime which you wipe off on your sleeve a rag and wet and scrape agin until no more comes off.

Don't put PVA on any wall that you hope one day to paint.

Original poster
petersham · 06/12/2011 09:33

So that Polyfilla product - do you think it would stick on top of high gloss painted woodchip wallpaper? I would probably much rather pay than go through the hassle some of you have been through.

Also, hopefully, is there different levels of woodchip content in paper to take into consideration? Mine looks a bit like heavily embossed paper but on the other side of it there are many small specks of wood? I am sure someone will come along and say, well...er.. they are all like that!

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