How best to tear off the wallpaper. How to remove wallpaper from walls - ways to quickly remove old wallpaper

Starting a renovation and don't know how to remove your old wallpaper? At first glance, there is nothing complicated in this, but each type of wallpaper material requires its own, special approach.

In this article, we will look at some quick and effective ways to get rid of old coverings, depending on the type of wallpaper.

We remove wallpaper in the traditional way

The easiest and most proven way to get rid of old wallpaper is to use water. First of all, turn off the power in the apartment, and then cover the sockets and switches with masking tape. To make cleaning easier after renovation, cover the floor with plastic wrap and tape it so that all dust and debris falls on it.

It is necessary to soak the wallpaper with hot water and dishwashing detergent. Wait 10-20 minutes and wet again. When the wallpaper is swollen, they are removed with a spatula, starting from the bottom, prying the edge of the canvas and removing it. Please note that it is not necessary to process the entire wall as a whole, it is better to wet only part of the wall, during this time the old coating will not have time to dry. The remnants of wallpaper can be wiped off with coarse-grained sandpaper, but so as not to damage the putty.

How to remove non-woven wallpaper

This type of wallpaper consists of two layers: the lower one made of cellulose and the upper one made of synthetic fibers. Usually, the top layer separates well from the paper base; it is enough to pick up a piece of non-woven fabric from below.

First, try removing this material with a dampener. If in this way it was not possible to remove the wall decoration, then try using the "wallpaper tiger". This is a special device capable of perforating wallpaper without damaging the putty layer. It is even easier to make notches on the surface using the sharp tip of a spatula or a spiked roller. This is done so that moisture penetrates inside and reaches the paper layer, since the non-woven fabric repels water. Wallpaper can be moistened with water or vinegar solution and can be easily removed as described above.

How to remove vinyl wallpaper

Vinyl wallpaper is a combination of two layers: the upper one, covered with polyvinyl chloride, and the lower one, woven or paper. PVC makes the surface water-repellent. Most often, these wallpapers are glued to PVA, which is very difficult to remove. Water and special fluids will not help here.

In this case, a mechanical cleaning method is used - a grinding machine. To begin with, remove the wallpaper with a spatula, and then, firmly pressing the sander against the wall surface, remove the remaining fragments. Please note that this method generates a lot of dust, therefore it is necessary to use a respirator and protective goggles. If you don't have a sander, you can use a piece of coarse sandpaper.

The subtleties of removing washable wallpaper

Washable wallpaper does not allow water to pass through, so it is impossible to remove it using the traditional method (soaking). But there is another way - to use a steam generator. Under the influence of hot steam, cellulose and glue swell and simply move away from the wall. In the event that you do not have a steam generator or an iron with a steamer in your house, you can use a damp cloth. To do this, attach it to the wall and iron it with a hot iron. Thus, you process the entire wall. After that, pry the edge of the wallpaper with a spatula and remove it. They should easily move away from the wall, entirely.

Secrets of removing liquid wallpaper

It is very easy to remove liquid wallpaper - just wet the surface with water, let the material swell, and you can remove the coating with a scraper or a wide spatula. If a thick layer of coating was applied, then the surface should be wetted several times. Liquid wallpaper is convenient because it can be repeatedly applied to the wall. To do this, it is enough to dry the removed coating, and when used again, simply wet it with water and reapply it to the surface.

If there was a lot of gypsum and adhesive in the composition of liquid wallpaper, then they can be removed with a construction hair dryer. To do this, they heat the surface of the wall, and after the material begins to crack from exposure to hot air, remove it with a spatula.

How to clean old wallpaper from drywall

If, before pasting the old wallpaper, the drywall was initially putty, then to remove the wallpaper, you can use special chemical agents that dissolve the wallpaper glue well. But keep in mind that such a solution is diluted with water, so it cannot be used in large quantities. The fact is that drywall itself easily absorbs moisture, while losing its strength and deforming.

Another way is to use the cheapest wallpaper glue. Dilute it and apply to the surface, evenly. It dries for a long time and at the same time pulls the material, which is why the wallpaper easily leaves the wall.

If none of the methods came up, then you can remove the wallpaper with the top layer of drywall. Since it consists of glued sheets of paper, it is enough to simply pick up the topmost one and carefully separate it using a molar knife.

Removing old wallpaper from the wall is a painstaking process, but it doesn't take long. Be sure to remove any glue and paper left over to keep your new wallpaper looking good and lasting.

Before gluing new wallpaper, you need to prepare the walls. Tearing off old wallpaper is not easy and messy. But this must be done, even if there is confidence that they are very firmly glued to the wall. Anything can hide under them, for example, bacteria and mold, which will damage not only new wallpaper, but also the health of people who will be in the room. Another reason to peel off the old coating may be that when new ones are glued on them, the old ones will swell, and they can begin to wrinkle and create unpleasant folds on the new canvas. All the imperfections and violations of the lower layer will appear - irregularities, separated joints, stains and dirt.

After the old wallpaper has been torn off, the walls must be primed under a putty, leveled with a putty, primed with a composition suitable for new wallpaper.

Preliminary preparation

You will need the following tools to strip off old wallpaper:

  • long-handled needle roller or wallpaper tiger;
  • water or a special solution for removing wallpaper;
  • water bucket;
  • sponge for wetting walls;
  • plastic film or cardboard.

Important! Before work, be sure to turn off the electricity in the room. Isolate sockets and switches.

Cover the floor with plastic wrap or cardboard so as not to spoil the floor covering.

Preferably - cardboard, as it is not slippery and less traumatic.

The furniture left in the room is carefully protected from possible ingress of dust, dirt and water. You can take a plastic construction film for this.

At the exit from the room, it is better to lay down a damp cloth so as not to carry the dirt further.

First stage

The walls are carefully rolled with a needle roller or scratched with a special device called a "wallpaper tiger". This is done to break the integrity of the surface layer of the wallpaper for better moisture penetration. This stage is especially important if the wall covering was moisture resistant. Wallpaper tiger looks like this:

Second phase

The wallpaper is thoroughly impregnated with water or a special solution for removing wallpaper. This requires a bucket and a sponge. Instead of a sponge, you can use a rag, foam roller, or spray bottle.

Note! The wallpaper and the glue underneath should be saturated with moisture, but be careful not to let the water drip onto the floor. You need to start ripping off the old canvas in about ten minutes, until the wall is dry.

Dismantling solution

The special composition consists of surfactants (surfactants), foam extinguishers and preservatives. Since wallpaper glue is most often made on the basis of organic polymers or starch, therefore, a substance that destroys organics well is used to dissolve it.

The defoamer in the composition is needed so that when the surfactant is applied, a lot of foam and dirt does not form.

This solution quickly reaches the bottom layer of the wallpaper, acting as a solvent on the glue. After that, some types of wallpaper do not even have to be ripped off, they come off on their own.

Important! Do not confuse wallpaper stripper with other paint strippers that are toxic.

The advantage of the ready-mixed mixture is that it:

  • quickly diluted with tap water;
  • does not contain substances hazardous to health;
  • fireproof;
  • does not irritate the skin and does not cause allergic reactions;
  • has good affordability;
  • does not damage building structures;
  • contains substances that destroy mold and mildew;
  • has a pleasant smell.

DIY solution

With your own hands, you can also prepare a special wetting solution in order to quickly peel the canvases off the wall:

  1. Mix 1:50 water and dishwashing liquid.
  2. Water and washing powder - in proportion as for soaking laundry.
  3. Alternatively, you can simply lather the wetting sponge with plain laundry soap.
  4. Another option is to prepare a saline solution: 4 tablespoons of salt are diluted in 10 liters of water.
  5. Also added to water - vinegar, ammonia, soda, fabric softener.

How to rip off the wallpaper

Tools to rip wallpaper off the wall:


To quickly peel off the covering from the wall, you need to know which one was glued. Let's consider several main types.

Non-woven wallpaper

Non-woven wallpaper is very quick and easy to peel off the wall, due to the fact that it has a non-woven backing - a material based on cellulose fiber, bonded with polymers.

You can tear off the non-woven wall covering in different ways:

  1. If you use the dry method, it is easy to peel off the top layer. The lower one, which has no color, remains on the wall. First, you need to pick up the top layer of wallpaper at the very bottom of the baseboard with the sharp edge of the trowel. Then take it with your hands and, if possible, evenly pull the canvas up. It can be easily peeled off completely, and the bottom layer will remain on the wall. After carefully examining, and making sure that this layer is not damaged and is firmly glued to the wall, you can leave it as a base for a new canvas. If the base is damaged, then it must be removed, go to the second method.
  2. Wet way. First, they pass over the wallpaper with a needle roller or a wallpaper tiger, moisten it with a solution with a sponge, then begin gently, picking up the wallpaper with a spatula.

Note! If, when gluing the wallpaper, not special glue, but PVA was used, the process of stripping the wallpaper from the wall can take a long time. PVA is a very strong glue and you will have to use a drill with a special attachment or a grinder.

Vinyl wallpapers

Before you strip off vinyl wallpaper, you need to determine on what basis they were made and which walls under them: plasterboard or plastered.

Depending on this, there are several ways to rip them off the wall:

  1. With a spatula, it is easy to remove vinyl wallpaper pasted over several layers of wallpaper. They move away from the walls easily. You cannot use a spatula if the resulting multi-layer cake was initially glued to the plastered surface - it is very easy to damage it.
  2. The upper polyvinyl layer does not absorb moisture well, so it is torn apart with a needle roller or wallpaper tiger, a solution is applied and after 10 minutes it is removed from the wall. The remaining pieces are removed with a spatula or sandpaper.
  3. Using a steam mop makes work much easier. Under its influence, the glue quickly swells, dissolves and everything is quickly removed.
  4. If the wallpaper has been glued to drywall, it must be remembered that it does not tolerate moisture and the option with wetting the wallpaper cannot be used. In this case, they are moistened with special industrial solutions and then removed.

To save money, you can use cheap wallpaper glue with a long drying period or a primer for these purposes (it takes a long time to evaporate). If the plasterboard structure was pasted over with PVA glue, you can safely proceed to dismantling. The resulting coating cannot be removed from the plasterboard wall in any way.

How to rip off silkscreen

Silk-screen printing looks very good on the wall, but it will be more difficult to peel it off, since special glue is used for gluing.

The removal principle is the same as for vinyl:

  • remove the first layer;
  • moisten the second;
  • let the solution soak;
  • peel off the second layer.

Removing paper wallpaper

In order to quickly peel off paper wallpaper glued to flour or starch paste, you must:


Remember! Do not take very hot water for wetting - you can damage the rough finish or the wall.

Video on how to peel wallpaper from the walls:

In order to properly tear off any kind of wallpaper from the walls, you need to show patience and maximum accuracy. There is no need to rush, because the quality of this work depends on what the premises will be like in the future.

Anyone who loves to change the design of rooms in the house on their own from time to time knows that before starting repairs in a room, it is imperative to completely remove the old finish from the walls. Most often, the old wallpaper has to be scraped off, and it is not always possible to remove it completely. But in order for the new decorative finish to lie flat and hold for a long time, it is very important to prepare the wall with high quality. We will tell you how to remove wallpaper from the walls quickly and completely so that you do not stay too long at this stage of the renovation work.

Preparatory work

In order to quickly remove wallpaper from the walls at home, it is very important to thoroughly prepare the surface in advance:

  • Before starting work, be sure to empty the room of furniture. If this is not possible for you, then cover it with foil or rags.
  • To save time and make cleaning easier, cover the floors with cardboard sheets.
  • If you are planning to remove the old wallpaper with a wet method, be sure to turn off the electricity first.

Important! If you do not have the opportunity to turn off the electricity, you must carefully cover all switches and sockets with foil and fix it with tape.

  • Place a damp cloth on the doorstep. This is to prevent dust and debris from spreading to other rooms.
  • Collect all the tools you need so that nothing distracts you while you work.

What You May Need

Regardless of the type and texture of wallpaper, you may need the following tools to remove them:

  • Ladder;
  • Garbage bags or bags;
  • Gloves;
  • A bucket of warm water;
  • Stationery knife;
  • Sharp spatulas of various sizes and shapes;
  • Sponges;
  • Rags;
  • Roller.

Important! If you need to remove vinyl wallpaper, then in this case you will also need a steam generator, a roller with needles and a special tool for removing such canvases.

Basic ways to remove old wallpaper

In order to remove old, firmly glued wallpaper from the walls, we bring to your attention several proven methods that will help you do this quickly and without much physical effort.

Traditional method

The simplest and most proven way is to use water. For this:

  1. Soak the wallpaper with a hot solution of water and dishwashing detergent.
  2. Apply it to the surface with a sponge and wait 10-30 minutes, then repeat the procedure again.
  3. As soon as the wallpaper is swollen, you can safely start removing it. To do this, using a putty knife, pry the edge of the canvas and remove it.
  4. Rub the scraps that still could not be removed with sandpaper.

Important! It is best not to process the entire wall, but to do this in parts. This is so that while you are working on one side, the other does not have time to dry.

Cleaning with steam

High-quality glue that you have not been able to dissolve with water can be steamed with an iron. To do this, you will need:

  • Sheet or thin terry towel;
  • Capacity with water;
  • An assistant who will hold the fabric.

The sequence of actions is as follows:

  1. Soak a rag in water and twist it well. Apply it to the wall surface.
  2. Turn on the iron and set it to the highest temperature.
  3. Iron the sheet several times with a hot iron.
  4. Remove the rag, quickly remove the remnants of the wallpaper from the wall with a spatula.

The wallpaper can also be softened with a steam generator or steam cleaner. To do this, before starting work, you need to attach a dry sheet. This is necessary in order not to provoke a breakdown of this technique.

Important! Pay attention to the fact that steam penetrates the surface of the wall, including the putty. Therefore, before gluing new canvases, leave the walls alone and let them dry for about 3-4 days. Otherwise, mold may appear.

Special formulations

In order to quickly remove the wallpaper and not spend too much time on this procedure, you can use a special tool to instantly remove the canvases from the wall. It can be purchased at hardware stores. As for the release form, the most common is powdery or jelly, which are diluted in water before starting work.

To remove the wallpaper:

  • Dip a roller into the prepared solution and treat the walls with it.

Important! On water-repellent canvases, several cuts must be made before starting processing.

  • Leave the walls for 2-3 hours to soften the paper layer and dissolve the glue.

The wallpaper will begin to lag behind, and you will just need to take it off, without making any special physical efforts.

Important! Despite the fact that manufacturers claim that such formulations are safe, work is best done with gloves. If the solution gets on an open surface of the skin, it must be rinsed with plenty of clean water.

How to remove old paper wallpaper?

Before starting work, you should pay attention to the fact that paper wallpaper canvases are of several types, respectively - the methods of their removal are also different:

  • Single-layer canvases. This is the simplest coating that can be removed without much difficulty with ordinary warm water. It is enough to moisten it and leave it to swell for 5-7 minutes. After that, you can safely shoot.
  • Two-layer paper wallpaper, or duplex. They take a little longer to get wet than single layers. Therefore, after you have moistened the surface, you should wait about 10-20 minutes - depending on the quality of the material.

Important! When removed, such wallpaper can begin to delaminate. This is not scary if your walls are even and does not require repair, otherwise the procedure will need to be repeated in order to remove the second layer.

  • Washable. Due to the fact that the surface is moisture resistant, it does not allow water to pass through, therefore it is necessary to destroy the top layer in order to remove the canvas. This can be done using a special roller with needles, or as it is also called "wallpaper tiger". If you don't have one, you can use a metal brush or other sharp object.

Important! Washable paper wallpaper should be moistened several times, with an interval of 15-20 minutes. This will make them swell well and can be removed easily.

How to remove vinyl wallpaper?

Basically, vinyl wallpaper consists of a paper base and a polymer layer. Due to this combination, they are durable, protected from moisture and do not create difficulties when gluing. In addition, the range of such canvases is simply limitless. They can be washable, foamed, with silk thread, and resistant to various solvents and alcohol. Accordingly, removing vinyl canvases is not so easy.

Therefore, in this case, you cannot do without a special wallpaper roller with needles. And in order for the process of removing old wallpaper from concrete walls and other surfaces to be faster, you must adhere to the following sequence of actions:

  1. Roll over the entire surface of the walls.
  2. Using a roller or other rag, moisten one cloth, and after 5 minutes, the other. Keeping this period of time, treat the entire surface of the wall in this way.
  3. Using a sharp putty knife, pry off the top of the strip that you moistened at the very beginning, then gently pull down with smooth movements.
  4. If there are small pieces left, then moisten them again and move on to the next canvas. Do the same with the rest of the wallpaper stripes.
  5. After you have removed 3 canvases, go back to the first and use a spatula to clean the wall from scraps.
  6. Further, you continue to work with the same interval.

How to remove non-woven wallpaper?

Such fabrics consist of fairly strong synthetic fibers that have a waterproof layer. Therefore, in order to remove this decorative coating from the wall:

  1. It is necessary to make cuts using a clerical knife or walk with a special roller with needles.
  2. After that, the canvases can be moistened with water and left for 15-20 minutes.

After the specified time, the glue will swell, and the wallpaper will begin to lag behind the wall surface by itself.

How to remove liquid wallpaper?

Liquid wallpaper is a decorative coating designed for both walls and ceilings. They are made from cotton or cellulose flakes and water-soluble glue. Therefore, you can remove this coating by simply dampening it with water. For this:

  1. Wet the wallpaper several times with a spray bottle or sponge.
  2. Once they have swollen, remove them easily with a metal spatula or scraper.

Important! Liquid wallpaper is a fairly durable and versatile coating that can be reused even after it has been removed from the wall.

Remove wallpaper from drywall

Plasterboard is very often used for interior decoration. It perfectly helps to hide and even out all defects and irregularities in the walls. Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to remove wallpaper from a drywall surface. This is due to the fact that on top of this material is covered with a paper layer, respectively - wetting the canvas with water, you can damage the drywall itself. In order to remove old paper wallpaper, it is best to use special chemicals that can dissolve the glue.

Important! The use of chemicals to remove wallpaper from drywall walls should be done if the surface was previously plastered before gluing.

Another option is to use regular glue. For this:

  1. Apply it to the wall surface and let dry.
  2. After the material has swollen, remove the old blades with a spatula.

Important! Sometimes a primer is used instead of glue. The advantage of this method is that you will not only remove old wallpaper, but also protect the surface additionally.

We bring to your attention a few tips that will help you easily and quickly remove the old wallpaper, even in the most unusual situations:

  • In old buildings, only the top layer of the wallpaper should be removed. This is due to the fact that the walls in such rooms are thin and uneven. Therefore, if you do not want small repairs to turn into major ones, then it is better not to touch the second layer.

As you know, it doesn't take much time to stick new wallpapers on the walls. The only thing, so that this process does not take too long, you need to quickly get rid of the old coating.

Why rip off the old cover

Often, home craftsmen have doubts about whether it is necessary to rip off the old finishing material if it adheres well to the walls. However, there are several reasons why this should be done.

Here are the main ones:

  • The old coating does not hold well everywhere. Therefore, the created load, in the form of another wallpaper layer, will quickly reveal these shortcomings.
  • If the old canvases are made of paper, the glue will soften them, as a result of which the drying time will increase. But, most importantly, this can provoke the lag of the old coating from the wall. Even if the material does not completely fall off, bubbles or wrinkles may appear on the walls.
  • If the wallpaper is vinyl, then it is impossible to ensure good adhesion to them, moreover, as a rule, they are embossed, which also excludes the possibility of gluing them over the wallpaper.

So, cleaning the walls from old material is a must. However, it does not take much time and effort, since every home master can quickly tear off the wallpaper from the wall, as you will see for yourself later.

Ways to remove wallpaper

By hands

Often the dilapidated coating is kept, as they say, on parole. In this case, you can remove it yourself. To do this, you just need to pry the edge of the canvases with a spatula or other sharp object and pull it to the side.

Perhaps, with one jerk, it will be possible to remove the whole canvas. In places where the material holds well, a sharp instrument should be used.

With water

If you cannot tear the canvases with your hands, then water will help in this case.

The instruction looks like this:

  • First of all, you need to soak the canvases... To do this, they can be treated with a foam roller for painting, a sponge soaked in water, or sprayed with a spray bottle. It is best to use warm water to speed up the process.
  • Before tearing off the washable wallpaper, peel off the protective layer or make cuts in certain places. You can also use a special tool - a roller with needles, which, after rolling over the surface, leaves small holes. After that, the canvases must be wetted as described above.
  • Then you need to wait about five minutes until the material is saturated with water..
  • Wet canvases will easily come off the surface.
  • If in some places the coating does not lag behind, then the wet residues should be scraped off with a spatula..

Note!
Before wetting the walls with water, it is necessary to turn off the electricity so that the water does not close the contacts of the wires that are energized.

In the photo - a needle roller

Use of chemicals

Progress, of course, does not stand still. Therefore, special chemical products for removing old wallpaper have appeared on the construction market. I must say that their price is quite affordable, so this option should also be considered.

The product is applied with a sponge or a regular roller. The liquid is not toxic, but at the same time it is absorbed into the coating structure much faster than water. After the canvases are saturated with the composition, it is easy to tear them off with your hands.

With steam

Another great way to easily peel off old wallpaper is to use steam. Of course, a steam generator will do the job best. However, not everyone has such an attitude.

Therefore, you can create steam with improvised means. The easiest way is to apply a damp cloth to the wall and iron it with an iron. It is even better if the iron has a vertical steaming function. In this case, the process will be faster.

Mechanically

Sometimes there are situations when the coating cannot be removed from the walls using any of the above methods. In this case, you need to take more radical measures, for example, use a sander with a coarse-grained nozzle.

Of course, this method is rather dirty and dusty, moreover, there is a high probability of ruining the surface of the wall. However, in this case, there is no other effective way to quickly remove old finishes. The only thing is that the sander can not be used for all walls, but only for those areas that cannot be cleaned otherwise.

Note!
When working with a sander, protect the respiratory tract with a respirator.

Here, perhaps, are all the main ways to strip wallpaper from the wall.

Surface preparation for wallpapering

I must say that the preparation of the surface for gluing the new material is not over yet.

In addition to removing the wallpaper, you still need to do some other things:

  • First of all, the walls should be cleaned from old glue, dust and other contaminants.
  • Then the surface must be covered with a layer of primer.
  • If the rough finish was damaged while removing the old material, it is necessary to carry out a filling.
  • When the putty dries out, the walls need to be treated with a primer again.

After that, you can proceed directly to wallpapering.

In order for the new finish to hold well, it is important to properly prepare the surface: remove the old wallpaper, putty the cracks, prime the walls. In this article, we will consider how to remove wallpaper from the walls without much material costs and nervous shocks.

If you have to clean a plastered wall plastered with cement mortar, and the wallpaper, although it has lost its appearance, has not lost its strength (it doesn’t torn at hand), consider yourself lucky, because you can do it in a few minutes. But if the coatings are thin, easily torn, and even glued them with PVA glue, it will seem to you that it is easier to sheathe the wall with drywall than to get rid of the hated wallpaper sheets. Of all the types, the hardest to remove is the old paper of the Soviet era. This is due to the peculiarities of the material, with the quality characteristics of the glue used in those days, at best - CMC, at worst - Bustilat, wood glue, PVA. Such coatings are almost impossible to tear off with a whole canvas. They have to be scraped off with effort, centimeter by centimeter. This is a rather tedious task.

Before pasting the walls, the old material must be completely removed.

Previously, the walls were prepared before pasting by gluing newspapers. If there was already a paper covering on the walls, then it was not removed, but simply a new one was applied on top of the old one. Over the years, many layers could have accumulated on the walls, firmly glued to each other. Leaving such an ugliness on the wall is not hygienic: mold and various insects often start. This is the reason for the unpleasant odor in the apartment.

The situation is especially dangerous when there are small children in the house, because the damage to the walls by fungi is the main cause of allergic diseases. There are several ways to free yourself from all these remnants of the past, described below.

Tools and materials

  • a bucket of warm water, into which it is better to add dishwashing detergent;
  • paint roller, foam sponge or sprayer.
  • metal spatula or scraper;
  • ladder;
  • masking tape;
  • polyethylene film;
  • chemical removers for wallpaper;
  • metal brush;
  • iron and cotton flap.

It is more convenient to shoot from top to bottom. It is necessary to pry the upper edge with a spatula, then pull it down, prying up badly lagging places. This may be sufficient. But if the wallpaper does not come off well, additional moisture will be needed to soften the old glue.

It is convenient to work from top to bottom, "picking up" firmly attached areas with a spatula

Work order

  1. Before starting work, it is necessary to observe basic technical safety rules, because there are electrical switches and sockets on the walls. And in the work, you may have to use water or other conductive liquids. Therefore, for the duration of the work, it is necessary to turn off the electricity, seal the sockets, wires and switches with masking tape
  2. To the skirting board, using adhesive tape, you need to glue a plastic film with a width of at least 50 cm. The other end of the film is glued to the floor. This will make cleaning easier.
  3. Soak old coatings with warm water and dish detergent or liquid soap. You do not need to immediately take up a large area, because while you scrape in one place, it will have time to dry in another. For better water penetration, the surface of the wallpaper should be scratched with a knife or scraper. After swelling, clean the wall with a spatula. You can use special chemical washes. According to the instructions, a solution is prepared and applied with a sponge or spray. Such washing solutions are highly permeable and destroy the adhesive layer well, after which removal will not be difficult.

If you cannot delete the wallpaper in the usual way

If soaking does not work, try steaming with a wet cotton cloth and an iron. It is necessary to scrape off while the walls are hot.

If there is still residual glue that cannot be removed in any way, remove it with a coarse emery cloth, preferably with a grinder. Irregularities left on the walls will need to be putty.

Modern wallpapers are much easier to clean than old ones.

  • Most of them are two-layer, which provides for the possibility of delamination. In this case, only the outer decorative layer, which has lost its appearance, can be removed, and the "substrate" will remain on the wall and will serve as the basis for new ones.
  • Modern wallpaper glue has good adhesion properties and, at the same time, easily dissolves with special removers or warm water, which greatly simplifies the process.

The method of removal is determined by the type of wallpaper and the nature of the surface on which it was glued. Walls can be with a durable moisture-resistant surface or plasterboard. But the question inevitably arises: how to remove washable wallpaper coverings.

How to remove vinyl wallpaper

They have two layers. The first is the base, which is glued to the wall surface, it can be paper or non-woven. The second is vinyl (polyvinyl chloride), which gives moisture resistant and decorative properties. It is completely optional to remove them from the walls, they provide for the possibility of removing only the outer PVC layer. The base remains on the wall, provided it is securely glued. Depending on the base material, vinyl wallpapers are paper and non-woven. If it is necessary to completely remove the paper, you can first tear off the outer layer, and soak the base with water and clean off with a metal spatula.

Parting with the old non-woven fabric

It is advisable to remove only the outer layer, since the remaining non-woven material, strengthening the wall, will serve as a good basis. If you have already decided to remove it completely, then the non-woven base is stronger than the paper one, therefore it is easier to remove it. It is enough to pry the edge with a spatula and smoothly tear it off the wall from top to bottom, helping with the spatula to tear off the hard-lagging places. If necessary, the inner layer can be moistened during tearing off.

Wallpaper perforating device (tiger)

How to "free" drywall from wallpaper

It is undesirable to moisten the surface abundantly - you can damage the drywall by removing it from the cardboard. If the drywall was not primed before pasting, then it will be almost impossible to remove the wallpaper coverings from it without damaging the cardboard layer. In order to do this, it is better to use special washes. To increase the effectiveness of the wash, the surface must be scratched or notched; you can make the perforation with a knife, spatula, toothed roller or a special wallpaper tiger.

In especially severe cases, when not wallpaper glue was used, but for example PVA, you can try to remove it together with a thin layer of cardboard. Since it consists of thin sheets of paper glued together, you only need to peel off the outer sheet. This should be done carefully, carefully peeling it off with a paint knife. If you decide on this, do not forget to putty and prime the surface before pasting new ones.

After perforation and moistening, the wallpaper can be removed more easily.

How to remove liquid wallpaper

This is a decorative and finishing coating of walls and ceilings, consisting of cellulose or cotton flakes with dyes and other components. The composition contains a water-soluble glue, with which they stick to the surface. The glue dissolves with water even after drying. In order to remove liquid wallpaper, you must first soak well. This is where a spray bottle, foam sponge, or rag comes in handy. It is advisable to wet the surface several times. After they swell well, they are cleaned off with a scraper or metal spatula. The mass removed from the wall can be reused if desired.

Work will progress faster if you use a steam stripper to moisten the papered wall.

If the renovation is delayed and you are pressed for time, it will be useful to know how to get rid of old wallpaper covering using professional tools, such as a steam stripper. This device is good because it simultaneously warms up and moisturizes the surface. With the help of superheated steam, old, dried glue can also be effectively removed. The impact on the wall surface is minimal.

Video: another effective way

Old wallpaper can be removed with a film. Watch the video, it is possible that you will like this particular option.

Removing unnecessary wallpaper is not so difficult, it is important to take into account some of the features of the materials used.