House repairs/work question about stripping wall paper

[Lawn Lad]

Well, since you all are so knowledgable about everything else, maybe someone will have a little insight on this.

I've stripped some old wall paper in the last bedroom of the house that isn't painted. I need to remove the sizing and paste on the wall before I can begin patching cracks. We're going to paint the walls. There is no reason to use a steamer since the paper pulled right off. So now, I'm left with washing the walls. In the past I've used DIF in a sprayer to wet the walls, scrape off the heavy junk with 8" or 10" mud knife and then wash the walls down.

Here's the question, I've got a Porter Cable vaccum/dry wall sander unit with the rotating sanding disk. I've test a spot on the wall and it seems like it will remove the sizing/paste. Or am I leaving some behind that I can see? Can I use the drywall sander to remove the paste or should I just was the walls?

Thanks for the input.

[JD PLOWER]

LL the drywall sander should be fine but be carefull on how you use it. If a section of wall is hard to sand smooth don't just hold the sander over it as this will definitley damage the wall, try to hand sand or wash it off using (as you mentioned) DIF. I've been through this process many times and depending on how smooth you want the walls you might have to skim coat the entire room. After that prime all the walls and "flash it" with a light and look for holidays and repatch them. Depending on how the walls turn out you might want to use a good flat paint to hide even more of the imperfections. Benjamin Moore makes a matte finish paint thats perfect for this. Good luck.

[Plow Dak]

unfortunately if you HAD used a steamer even though it "came right off" you might have removed about 90% of the glue. I redid 3 rooms in my house with a steamer and one room the paper was coming off easy but it was not removing the glue. i used the steamer and the paper helped take off the glue. The sander should work fine but wear a mask please..

[gslam88]

Lawn Lad,


I would have to agree with Plow Dak,

using the steamer ( even now) will help reduce a lot of the effort. I used the Wagner power steamer... I think we got it at Home depot, Lowes... worked great on several rooms.. but I also used a plactic scrapper... did not use a metal one as to not dig into the wall while it was getting wet from the steam..... the sheet rock will get soft with the steam...

I think you can still use it now... it work a shot...

Good luck either way


Pete

[digger242j]

I try to stay out of her way, since I prefer to work outside anyway, but my wife is a big fan of putting up vinyl wall liner, whether she's going to put up new paper, or just paint over it. That route *might* involve less work than actually trying to get the walls themselves perfectly smooth....

[Lawn Lad]

Thanks all for the replies. I don't own a steamer, so rather than going and renting one or buying one at this point I'll stick with the tools I have at the moment. I think I'll go with the sander with an 80 grit wheel to start things off. I'll hand wash the corners and tough to reach spots. I'll avoid spraying the walls at this point since I don't want to make a wet mess everywhere.

Thanks for the tip on the mask, I probably would have just rushed into the job and counted on the vaccum to suck up the dust.

We're going to paint rather than paper. I don't have the skills to paper and would rather take the time to get the plaster right than try my hand at paper.

Thanks again for the replies.

[handyhaver]

That sander should do fine as long as the walls are plaster.

After sanding, skim coat and sand where needed. I would prime with Kilz (oil based) stain blocker. After priming you should be able to see what might needs to be skimmmed again. When you paint, if any paste was left on the wall, the Kilz will keep it from bleeding through.

As said before, a quaility flat finish will hide a multitude of sin :D

Good luck...............I hate painting. First 4 letters of paint are

PAIN!!!

Mark

[festerw]

There is some stuf called TSP you can get it just about anywhere, dissloves in water and you sponge it onto the walls it will dissolve pretty much whatever you have on the walls. Also I agree that you should prime with Kilz that stuff is great.

[Rob]

Originally posted by digger242j
I try to stay out of her way

I'm with digger !

but I know that when she does strip wallpaper the solvent of choice is always white vinegar. You can pick it up at the warehouse stores (Sams, Costco, BJ's....) in the gallon jugs and it cuts the paste as good as or better than the Dif / TSP etc.

HTH

[sonjaab]

LL.............I was/am a union painter and paperhanger for
since 1976 in my other life !

These guys are giving you some excellent tips !

I too would sand off the wallpaper glue then spot patch
and prime, then paint.

Plaster walls huh? Tricky, tricky.....................geo

Proud member Painters and Allied Trades local 31
Syracuse NY

[handyhaver]

Hey Geo,

All those paint fumes.........................that explains it now :D

How you doing buddy.....Will keep you posted for our next Philly meet & greet :burnout


Hope you had a good holiday!!!

Mark

[Chuck Smith]

TSP = Tri Sodium Phosphate. It is basically an industrial soap, that really doesn't make any suds. It is great for getting oil off concrete floors. It also helps break up oil so it can dissolve in water. Good for getting off mildew, where Muratic Acid cannot be used too.

Great advice from everyone for you.

~Chuck

[sonjaab]

MARK......Oh yea.......Worst fumes now I breath are from
booze!

I seen info posted elsewhere for a Philly meet the 2nd
week of Jan. at Hooters KOP. Know anthing about it?

I will be in Philly next week if the $now don't arrive!
Will bring blade too....You guys are tearing up too much
equipment !
............geo plowing!

[handyhaver]

geo,

Don't know a thing about it..........

Not that we don't want you here, but we could use the snow:cash .

Bring that bad boy on down here, we'll put you to work

Mark

[gslam88]

Guys,


I think this post lost a little direction huh?

[Lawn Lad]

I'll bring the post back around... thanks again the suggestions guys.

Geo - why do you say tricky with plaster walls? Is it because they are not necessarily flat like drywall? Perhaps this is sacralidge (spelling?) to use joint/topping compound to repair plaster walls. I make my life easy by using drywall tools on plaster walls. I have a couple of rental properties that were built in the 20's and I repaired the plaster walls with drywall materials/tools and it worked out fine.

I have definetly learned a lesson about repairing cracks in the walls. When I do the work I gauge out cracks with a screw driver or similar tool, fill with compound, tape over the crack and skim coat and sand it out. It's a little work, but I've never had a crack reappear. I hired a painter (read: professional) this past summer to do some work and he swore that just filling over the cracks was good enough. So I let him get away with it... and sure enough, a decent sized crack has reappeared but three months later. I guess if you want it done right you've got to do it yourself.