Woodchip ceiling

[NotPennysBoat]

Does anyone have advice/experience of getting rid of/covering up a woodchip ceiling?

In other rooms we have paid for someone to plasterboard over it, replaster and then paint, however in this room there is a flat and sloping ceiling, so not sure if that technique will work with the 'bend'...

Is there anything you can buy to 'skim' over it for a smooth finish? Or is the only way to peel it off and probably replaster what's left of the ceiling? Keeping it is not an option!

Thanks in advance :)

Wet it and scrape it off. It will wet better once you have scraped the chips and broken the paint film. If the room is empty you can use a plant sprayer with half a drop of WUL. Turn off the electricity to lights and sockets at the consumer unit (not just the switch)

I'll be keeping an eye for the responses - we have one of these too, just in one room.

Ask your plasterer what he prefers. Ours has always coped with odd shaped ceilings

Failing that break surface with scraper or blade and steam off

I would always get rid of it, wet/steam and scrape off then replaster/patch/line as necessary. I hate half arsed jobs covering up rather than doing properly.
We have spent the past year scraping off inches of stuff covering up various previous problem areas - it doesn't fix the issue just covers it up and in the long term makes it worse and more difficult to fix when it eventually fails.
I'm not bitter at all about how much work it's been to fix 25yrs of bodging by the previous owners!!

I've done this...
Getting the underlayer off is easy - wet it (with spray bottle) and it will easily pull scrape off with bits of chips on...its getting the top layer off that's a PIA.

If it is quite heavily painted you might be able to pull of the top layer quite easily in big strips if you make a make in the surface and and can get under it...

If it doesn't it is an absolute PIA...I found this on a kitchen ceiling - (so done with 'kitchen' waterproof paint) you need to score it first - break holes in the top layer - you can use a stanley knife or I bought a rotary thing...problem with both is making enough holes to allow moisture under but not so many that it only comes off in pieces the size of a postage stamp - then steaming/soaking - even made thick wallpaper stripper - (mixed hot water with cornflour and then added the stripper, plastered it on covered with cut up plastic bags so it didn't dry out and left it for a few hours -that worked well as long as you didn't let it dry out...)

In the end for one I got something called a heavy duty stripper - basically a big razor blade attached to a handle. if you got the angle correct you could scrape the top layer off easily, but if you didn't you made huge gorges in the surface - after all my hard work I ended up having it skimmed anyway ...

And I meant to say I had one room done by professional decorators as part of an insurance job -
They did a crap job - (my fault for saying it was just a storage room and as long as the hole caused by the leak was patched etc I wasn't too bothered)...
If I look at parts of the ceiling I can see where they didn't get all the woodchip off properly, just covered it with thick lining paper...so obviously even professionals find it a PIA

if a steamer is held in one place long enough to overheat the plaster, it will crack and burst off. This is especially likely on ceilings in poor condition, which is why they will have been hidden with woodchip.

I have a feeling it will need replastering, which may only cost a couple of £hundred per room. You can't successfully skim over wallpaper or cracked, sagging ceilings.

Hello OP

We scored ours and then soaked it and left it wet for a while, then it came off quite easily with scraper and steamer.
It's horrible, I know.
We had it in every room in a previous house, it took age to remove.
I'm twitching just thinking about your ceiling

There were several that needed replastering, some only needed patching up though and we did these ourselves.

As Piglet says, lots of people used this and Anaglypta to cover a multitude of sins.

Good luck.

Just scrape it off. In the time you spend researching other ways to do it you could have done it

says she who is going to cover the walls instead

In the end for one I got something called a heavy duty stripper - basically a big razor blade attached to a handle.

Agreed. These are vital. And a steam stripper.

Thanks everyone for the advice, going to ask decorator to quote for getting rid of it.
We had to do a few walls last year which was torture, but not attempted a ceiling before. Can't stand the thought of stretching backwards to get it off - especially not at 14wks pg!

We'll be scraping ours off - we've just bought a Victorian house that was given an Arts & Crafts extension way back including adding beamed ceilings in all the main ground floor rooms. Some dick?? previous owner decided in their wisdom to stick woodchip on virtually every wall and every ceiling - including between the beams - throughout the house and it's my job to remove it before repainting ??

GL with yours OP!

I did this a few weeks ago, honestly it wasn't that bad, depending on your room. We had 2 steamers, we shut the doors and windows, turned the steamers on and left them for a bit just sat on the floor, stream pointing up. We basically made the whole room into a sauna. It literally flew off! Honestly it really worked.

Don't assume it will be horrid of the seven ceilings I did - 5 were easy peasey and 2 were pita. Patience, water, steamer (use approach above) do work. None needed reskimming. I've only had problems with steamers blowing very thin modern skims over older plaster. The risk might be more in a more modern (not victorian) house. Also found the rotary pricker good and still let the paper hold together. That all said I wouldn't do it when pregnant - you might be tired and sore enough will put potentially doing a labourious job up a ladder.

Will put aka with out

Green cheese - love it. That defo works !