Stripping 1920s walls

[badhorsey]

Hi, I live in a terraced house in South London that was built around 1920. I'm planning to strip the living room walls, which have woodchip on them, but I'm undecided whether to go down to the plaster and repaint, or right down to the brick. What are the pros and cons of each, and what am I likely to encounter? I'm guessing that the plaster would be on a wooden lathe?

tHANKS!

[Mick-Talbot]

wow, that is a lot of walls. Good luck.

[The Builder]

Scraping off woodchip is a lousy job horsey ............. you'll probably have to do a lot of Polyfilling afterwards, or re-skim the walls (pink Gypsum plaster.)
I can't think of any good reason to go back to brick, unless the plaster is falling off already.
I would take the opportunity to insulate the walls by battening, fitting "Celotex" between the battens, and then nailing plasterboard. Finish with skim or "Dry-jointing".

[alavahalf]

My neighbour removed some woodchip paper .. he then spent a few weeks in hospital.
It appears that certain spores can live quite happily in woodchip. They did'nt agree with his lungs.
So make sure you wear a mask if you scrape it off.

[MickeyTheBrick]

Score all the walls with a blade. Then get a bucket of WARM soapy water and, using a sponge, wet down all of the walls. When you finish, start again and wet all of the walls again. Then get your scraper on the walls, It'll come off fairly easily and will stop any dust/ mites etc being released into the air.

[heathfield]

If you use a blade to score the walls there's a good chance of damaging the underlying surface. I'd advise anyone dealing with removing woodchip (or, indeed, any other wallpaper) to use one of these - they're so easy to use, and will last a lifetime...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk...t&hash=item2eb132ed9d

[badhorsey]

Thanks for all the advice! The reason that I was considering going down to the walls was for the look, but I guess I'd be removing a layer of insulation by doing so, and a barrier to dampness?

Alavahalf, that is a TERRIFYING story, and one that hadn't even occurred to me...

[The Builder]

Just out of interest, Horsey ............... 1920 house? ...... cavity wall?

[badhorsey]

Er... I don't know! How would I find that out? It's a terraced house in SW16 and as far as I know, was built in the early '20s.

[ChuckFickens]

Look at the brickwork.

If you can see the ends of any bricks in any of the courses it's probably not a cavity wall, if you can not see the end of any bricks and they are all laid so you can only see the long sides then it probably is a cavity wall.

[ladybirder]

As I have said before on here the best way to remove woodchip is to soak it in wallpaper paste for an hour or so and it will come off easily. The person I gave this advice to confirmed it had worked.