Woodchip everywhere!

[Healthyban]

Enormous amounts of neatly thickly painted in gloss Woodchip.
whats best? (quickest and easiest)
Can I..a)score, steam, scrape?
b) skim with plaster
c) wallpaper over with thick lining paper?
in hall up the stairs and 4 rooms.
thank you!

Burn it down and start again?

No but wood chip is a nightmare, I might look to polyfill it (like with popcorn ceilings) but I have never done it before so no idea if it works.

A I’m afraid. You have my sympathy, I’ve been there.
You can get really heavy duty sharp scrapers that make it a little easier but it’s still a bitch. It will be great once it’s done though!

Yep, have this with our house as a legacy from the previous owner. He even did the ceilings!

Score, steam, scrape is the only way. I've tried all the suggestions but this is the only one that really works.

Score it well. Steam or wet with a damp cloth. Let it soak for a few minutes, scrape and repeat.

This kind

https://www.toolstation.com/prep-heavy-duty-scraper/p29412?store=HU&utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=googleshoppingfeed&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD-vLcUGasm9cia2Z3YDUjROqkR21&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI45bxmN6qiwMVR4pQBh19dDvYEAQYASABEgIsDvD_BwE

Been there too. Elbow grease is the best way, get rid of it all !

Been there too, every single wall and ceiling of 7 bed house, both floors. Its took about 10 years to do it all. Buy a steamer, score the painted surface and peel it off gently...steam off what is left underneath

Br prepared for what lies beneath. It was usually used to disguise cracking or dodgy plaster.

as others have said, score it, steam machine, strip it off. Make the room as steamy as possible!

I used a carpet cutter on woodchip walls. It scored quite well, then a took a car sponge and soaked the walls.

😳😳maybe I’ll just wait for it to be trendy again. That’s got to happen, right?

P.s thanks everyone, and thanks freaks that’s one serious scraper, I’d have used the usual kind!

Hey OP!

We're currently blessed with the same 🤣

It was possible to strip, caulk and cover with think liner paper in one medium sized room, which we then painted over. Was really impressed with our efforts considering my husband and Dad did it themselves.

Attempted to have the very large living room plastered without boarding first. My husband scored, stripped and sanded the living room ceiling twice, each time it was not good enough for the plasterer to skim straight onto the ceiling, the glue was just peeling off the ceiling and he was worried nothing would bond. We ended up having the ceiling boarded and skimmed and now there's no going back...we've donated the rest of the liner paper 🤣

So in summary, get of boarded over and skimmed. Much quicker, easier and less stressful (from a 1970s build renovator with a toddler and a newborn baby 😭)

I can confirm you will need a seriously heavy duty scraper and a bucket load of patience!

Our flat was pretty much all woodchip and it was a nightmare! Our hallway is the only place with it left, we're an upstairs flat and it goes very high up and covers the ceiling 😐 so will cost a fortune getting someone in to get rid of what we can't reach. It's evil stuff.

If you have the budget, buy a wallpaper steamer, that will really help. DH and I would take it in turns steaming the walls (after scouring, scouting will make it much quicker) while the other one followed with the scraper.

Wallpaper steamers aren't very expensive and really worth it. We've used ours loads over the years. IIRC with that kind of wood chip I scored it with the edge of a good sharp scraper in 2 directions then really heavy duty wetting and steaming until it finally softens and comes off. Watch out for it bringing the plaster with it. We then lining papered the poor walls before painting.

Yes, we were very unfortunate, and the plaster was totally shot underneath the wood chip, and the whole bungalow needed a full, re plaster- not unfortunately just skimmed.
4 1/2 years later each room has now been done, very expensive and very dusty to live through.
I recommend knocking on the walls concerned before doing each room so you know how big a repair job it is likely to be. (This also goes for walls with lining paper or multi layered wallpapered walls.)

Sorry, what does the knocking tell you? What sound tells you it's bad news?

Wood chip is the worst to get off enev with a proper wallpaper steamer. I find that having suffered through stripping a couple of rooms, wood chip in the next room suddenly looks much more acceptable - particularly with lots of pictures over it!

35 years ago this was us! Still in the same house now and not a wood chip in sight. It took us a good few years (albeit not the full 35!) as at first we could only afford to paint but we gradually got rid of it all. The last to go was the hall and landing ceilings. We chickened out with those and got them boarded over as we were too scared the ceilings would come down if we tried to take the paper off.

Agree, we had an entire house of woodchip and I got one of these blade scrapers and it made a massive difference.

I bought bottles of wallpaper dissolver liquid from B&Q, scored all over, sprayed that on, left it to soak then used a steamer before using the bladed scraper.

It took ages but got there in the end and was really lucky in that nowhere actually needed re plastering which was incredible really!

Our plasterer reckoned if you plaster over it (without boarding) the amount of moisture in the plaster brings the whole lot off. I imagine you'd come home to a huge mess one day.

Scoring, steaming and scraping is tedious but it's really satisfying when it's done.

Sounded hollow and felt soft.
When we had electrical work done prior to plastering the drill holes poured what looked like grains of sand. It must have been a very bad original mix to end up like that.

Hire someone else to suffer through getting it off? If you do it yourself, you can hire an industrial steamer from HSS or similar which is much better than the plastic ones from B&Q.

Have a stripping party. We had a 3 bed 1970's bungalow which was fully wood chipped. Tried to sell it that way but when one young buyer asked if we had put rice pudding on the walls we realised that we'd have to strip it all off if we wanted to sell any time soon. Took ages and we used a "cover-up" wallpaper which was thicker to cover the bumpy walls underneath. After we had finished we almost wanted to stay there.

Get an asbestos survey before you start. The plaster might come away with the wood chip