Woodchip woodchip and more woodchip.

[seenbetterdays]

In nearly every room. Is it really as difficult as I ve heard to get the stuff off? Tell me the best method please.

Soak the walls, leave to dry a bit, soak again, leave to dry a bit then strip

Or use wallpaper stripper

It's time consuming, rather than difficult, to remove. I used a steam wallpaper stripper but the downside is that the steam goes into every crack in the plaster and pops it off the wall.

Thanks for your replies. So would be better to use the soaking method rather than steamer. Mind you I think the walls are likely to be rough underneath so maybe i'll try the steamer . Can't make them too much worse can it? Just worried it's going to be very very messy indeed! And expensive if I need a plasterer as well! Got some very attrctive 1980's artexed ceilings as well to sort out. Suppose skimming those would be best. Or what?

I have lovely 80s tastic artex ceilings too - been in the house 12 years and I just can't face the mess of getting a plasterer in. I've got lovely fans randomly dotted around with the stipple effect and a wavey comb effect around the edges :)

Sounds just like mine. I've got stipples, squirls, big fan like efforts and to cap it all off, some that looks like thick icing on a christmas cake! I 've been told that the very big knobbley bits can be knocked off with a heavy duty scrapper thingy. Might make it look a bit more acceptable and flatter. Every room is different and interesting!!! What were they thinking of.

My DH has a friend whose mum has artex in all her downstairs rooms!!! I'm sure it was to stop all the teenage boys from leaning against her walls! One scrape along that and you would look like you've been grated!

When I took the woodchip off my ceilings with a wallpaper stripper the ceiling fell down... Be warned - woodchip hides a multitude of building sins...

What are you trying to tell me. Woodchip and artex are holding my entire house together. I might as well give up now.

Woodchip is often put up for a purpose - it's excellent at hiding bumpy walls, slightly dodgy cracks, and so on. You may well regret stripping it off - I removed it from one room and am now firmly leaving it on everywhere else.

I use a garden sprayer with warm water and half a drop of WUL.

Just mist them, when it's soaked in, mist again. Always start spraying and scraping at the top of the wall, the water will run down. The water that runs onto the floor is wasted. Better still, once you have loosened the top, you can get it to start running down behind the paper.

Get a good big scraper that you can put your shoulder behind, not a wincy little fingers and wrist DIY thing. You can use it to knock the tops off the pimples so water can soak in. Paint is fairly waterproof.

Steam strippers will make even sound plaster blow in you hold them in one place long enough to get it hot.

a scraper

some more

Piggletjohn, Am I being daft I don't know what WUL is. Thakyou for your sensible advice though, so need big industrial scraper and lots of water and effort. I ve done a bit on the stairs and found big cracks and some missing plaster so not too hopeful. I ve actually just made a mess, it looks worse at the moment. I ll have to bite the bullet and go for it. Not do little bits here and there. Am worried about cost of re plastering.

*ashing

*p

*iquid

See I knew I was stupid. Thanks again. Don't want to come and help do you?

I would skim the lot! I helped my friend to do this in her study and although it was a bit of a faff it was far easier than trying to strip woodchip and artex

What you skimmed straight over the damned stuff. Is that ok?

We finally (after 10 years) removed the woodchip from our dining room ceiling and the entire ceiling sagged and had to be hacked off and replaced.

Just spent 4 days striping wood chip off DCs bedroom walls and removing the adhesive from the polystyrene tiles we pulled down. Fortunately the walls and ceilings haven't fallen down, I think the previous owners just liked them and went tying to cover up

Well it's still ok 2 years later Polyfilla have a product specifically made for smoothing walls but we just used plaster and applied the same principles as filling holes.

Forgot to say, I used a steamer after knocking the bobbles off. Wasn't too bad just time consuming. Loads more to do as previous owners had been in for 60 years

Just asking again. Surely it's better to remove the woodchip before skimming. Some of mine is superglued on and other bits are loose! The loose stuff would have to come off. Oh I just have to strip it don't I there s no quick way is there. Should I turn off electric when using water . Worried about it running down walls into sockets.

We had stripped one room but ended up with so much of the plaster coming off with the paper that that whole room needed new plaster board. The study was a bit patchy in places but we just knocked off any loose bits and spent time filling and sanding before skimming.

skimming over wallpaper?

OMG.

I have way too much experience of removing woodchip .

The big razor blade on a stick that PigletJohn linked to is what you need along with a large stock of replacement blades much easier, less unpleasant and less dangerous than soaking or steaming.

Some of the walls underneath mine weren't actually too bad. I think some people actually considered it to be fashionable . But pollyfilla do something called finishing skim, which comes in a tub, goes on with a plastic applicator-type thing, sands dead easily, and is easy for a rank amateur to use and get a decent result with. I highly recommend it.