Has anyone ever hired, bought or used a wallpaper stripper? If so, how did you get on? If you bought one, what did you buy, where did you purchase, etc. Argos have 3 types, €30, €40 and €50 but I have no idea how to select one or what to look for.
We had 2 separate threads on this subject some time ago but unfortunately they seem to be gone now. As far as I can recall most people were of the opinion that the steamers were not much use and preferred the old way of wetting the paper, leaving it to soak and then removing it with a scraper.
IMHO its the best method. I found the steamer not worth the bother.
I used a hired steamer and found it very useful. There will always be stubborn bits here and there but in the main they're better than the water lark. Make sure your wall is a solid one though, if its plasterboard you could end up hacking the whole lot off. (The paper usually peels off a plasterboard anyway without much work)
Spent 4 hours, wetting paper and scrapping like a bugger, decided to invest in the Earlex and finished it in 1.5 hours, superb yoke, has accessories to clean windows, tiles, upholstery etc.
Stripped all the wallpaper in my house with warm water with vinegar mixed in, the acid in the vinegar disolves the wallpaper paste and it really does walk off the wall, the wallpaper in my house had been painted over and still we managed it without the wallpaper steamer
I recently hire a wall paper steamer from Sam Hire in little island in Cork for this job. Have to say i thought it did a good job. You still need to peel off the vinyl top layer though. I had a room with 5 layers of wall paper on it. It took me a full day to do the room.
But i did have plaster board wall and i did do some small damage to it but at least all that bloody wall paper is off now.
Be careful not to burn yourself.
Hi, just finished stripping (painted wood chip) wallpaper from 3 bedrooms and a hall/stairs and landing. We borrowed a steamer and it worked a treat. The water combo didn't work for us at all. Can't rememeber the make but it was a cheap and cheerfull model.
We did however discover that the plaster was dodgy underneath and ended up having to replaster large areas. We've been told that the steamer would have exasperated this, so beware.
Also scalded my hand badly during same, so as other poster said be careful when opening and re-filling the steamer!
for top of landing wall, I taped the head of the steamer to an extension pole and also a scraper and let the steam do the hard work, the paper fell off very easily as it was probably just as hard to apply adhesive initially. I found repainting the same area much harder than stripping it