How do I strip wallpaper?

[Keenoonvino]

We moved 3 months ago and have since lived in a house with awful wallpaper in every room and I am now ready to tackle it....room by room! However, I have no idea how to get wallpaper off the wall so I can paint it. It's all glossy wallpaper so I don't think I want to paint straight onto it, I'd rather remove it first and then paint. The internet seems to be full of conflicting advice, and my dad has told me to hire a steamer which from what I've read seems a bit out of date.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you...

We had to strip paper off in our hall recently and the builder lent us his wallpaper steamer. It took longer to heat up than it did to actually strip the wall - it was very effective.

We used a wallpaper steamer but had to plaster the walls because chunks of plaster came off.

I've been doing this for what feels like weeks now

We've got a Bosch steamer. You put in 1 litre of water. It takes about 10 mins to heat up, and then is good for about an hour's worth of steaming/stripping.

Takes ages without a steamer.

Thank you - seems like a steamer is the way to go. The internet is full of random stuff about mixing household chemicals together and painting on top of wallpaper.... Will hunt one out this week and see if we can get one room done! Am a bit nervous about having to replaster though.....wanted to avoid any costs like that....

If you are doing lots of rooms, buy a steamer rather than hire. You can get a decent one, with two plate sizes, in B&Q for less than £50 (given that a day's hire is around £20 it is worth it).

The plaster won't always be damaged. We have just stripped most of the house and none of the plaster came away. Its old plaster but solid. MIL's house however had loose plaster which came away. If you use a steamer, have loose plaster and hold the steamer on it for a fraction too long, the plaster will come away. If you're not sure, better to use the long winded way of simply wetting the wall paper with a damp sponge.

The wallpaper is usually in 2 layers (well the paper splits into 2 layers) - there is kind of a top coat which will probably come away quite easily and then a yellowy bottom layer which will come away quite easily once its damp / wet. Normally, you wouldn't paint directly onto the plaster underneath, you'd line the walls with lining paper and then paint onto that.

My plaster was only damaged in places where I held the steamer in the one spot for too long.

Shiny wallpaper is harder to remove. You might need to peel the top section off in a few places to let the steam get under it.

We found 'washing' the walls well with warm soapy water before steaming helped loosen it a bit. Our steamer is a budget job from I think argos but works just fine. It's good to be a little bit careful about how long you hold the steamer directly on the wall as you can end up taking out big chunks of plaster. Learned that the hard way.

The right scrapey tool is your friend - look for a good thin edge and a bit of width, but not so much to make it unwieldy.

Also the satisfaction of getting a big sheet to fall away in one go is hard to beat.

Personally I didn't rate the steamer. The bits my husband did with the steamer had to have a fair bit of poly filler, the bits that I did with LOTS of water sponged on were in much better condition [smug]

I put towels on the floor as water went everywhere. And watch out for power points!

I did read about some gadget you can buy that's a spiky roller - apparently good for getting water to soak in. Or score lightly with a knife. But mine was fine with just lots of water.

I used a filler knife to scrape it off. I also have a wallpaper stripper tool, but find it is so shape I have to concentrate otherwise I gouged the wall.

Use one of those things that pierces the wallpaper all over then soak with warm soapy water...then soak again and start scraping two lengths at a time. Better results than using a steamer. We are halfway through stripping every room in our house and this method consistently works best.
Its actually becoming therapeutic! You will likely have to skim plaster afterwards unless you are just going to stick up new paper.
This thing...very good...
www.diy.com/nav/decor/wallpaper-wall-stickers/wallpaper-tools-accessories/Stanley-Orbital-Wallpaper-Scorer-9254651