Wallpaper Removal near you

The quickest diagnosis is to lift a corner at a seam with a putty knife and pull slowly. The way the paper responds tells the painter a lot about the job ahead, and older homes often hold more than one kind on the same wall.

Every method has the same aim: soften the paste so the paper lets go without taking the wall with it. The right choice depends on the paper and on how much moisture the wall underneath can take.

When paper was hung on drywall that was never primed, the paste bonds to the drywall's paper face, and removal can peel that face away and expose the brown layer beneath. The torn area has to be sealed with a primer made for the purpose before any compound goes on; otherwise the moisture in the compound raises bubbles and fuzz. Gouges from scrapers and scoring tools are filled, and when a wall is covered in small tears and ridges, a full skim coat is usually faster and flatter than spot patching.

Where damage runs deeper, such as gypsum softened by too much water or patches that keep failing, replacing a section of drywall can make more sense than chasing it; the drywall repair page covers those repairs. Plaster walls react differently. Old plaster tolerates moisture better than drywall, but it may be cracked or loose, and removal can reveal hollow spots that need a plasterer's attention, as the plaster repair page describes.

The paper itself is rarely the hazard; the wall behind it can be. Paper hung decades ago may cover joint compound, patching and textured paint from an era when asbestos was still in use, and Health Canada notes that it was mainly used in homes before 1990, listing plaster, paint, drywall and spackling among the materials that may contain it. Removal is exactly when those surfaces get scraped, steamed and sanded.

Health Canada advises having a professional test for asbestos before renovating and hiring a qualified removal specialist if it's found, so sample the patching compound and texture in an older home before the steamer comes out. Lead is the second concern. Health Canada says a home built before 1960 probably contains lead-based paint and warns against sanding it or using heat guns on it, and the painted walls under old paper are a likely place for it. The skim coating and sanding that follow removal make testing first all the more important.

Water-based paint rolled straight onto a wall that still carries traces of paste can crack, wrinkle or peel in patches, because the water in the paint reactivates the adhesive. That's why painters wash the wall thoroughly and then seal it with a primer suited to residue and patched surfaces, often an oil-based or shellac-based sealer or a product sold for this exact job, before any finish coat.

Once the primer is dry, the painter checks the walls under a raking light, since the paper hid flaws that paint will reveal, fixes what shows up and spot-primes the repairs. If new paper is going up instead of paint, a primer designed for wallcoverings is the better base, as the wallpaper installation page explains.