Wall cleaning: from old paint and whitewash, from old wallpaper and even plaster

Preparing walls for decoration is a crucial stage in the repair of a room. Only a thorough cleaning of the entire wall surface from old wallpaper, paint, tile, plaster or whitewash will subsequently allow high-quality finishing work. And although this is a laborious and dirty process, it cannot be avoided. Regardless of which finishing option is selected, the walls must be cleaned to the ground. The exception is only plasterboard casing.

We clean the walls of old wallpaper

To work, you will need:

• atomizer, roller or sponge;
• respirator, safety glasses;
• the spatula is narrow and wide;
• scraper;
• a bucket of warm water;
• wallpaper remover.

Different types of wallpaper differ in properties and quality, therefore they require a different approach when cleaning walls from old wallpapers.

Sometimes take off old wallpaper You can without much effort, just pulling the lagging edge. But if the wallpaper holds well, you must first soak them with warm water or a special tool that dissolves wallpaper glue. Paper wallpaper should be generously saturated with water, leave for 20 minutes, then remove.

A waterproof layer of non-woven or washable wallpaper will not let the water so soften them, so it is necessary to violate its integrity by making cuts and notches, and then moisten it with plenty of water with sponges. After the glue dissolves, the wallpaper easily leaves the walls.

Vinyl wallpapers when removed do not tear to pieces, but lag behind the wall in whole stripes. If part of the paper base remains on the wall, it can easily be removed by wetting it with water and prying it off with a spatula.

Liquid wallpaper can be removed with a spatula, pre-treated with water with the addition of a primer. If it’s difficult to remove the wallpaper manually, you will need a grinding machine with an abrasive nozzle.

How to clean the walls of paint

In order to mopping painted walls It was effective, you need to know two points:

1. What is the basis of the surface with which to work: brick, concrete, cement or plastered.
2. What paint the walls are painted: oil, water-based or acrylic.

The most difficult thing is the removal of oil paint from the concrete surface. But such a difficult task can be dealt with if you have at hand all the necessary tools and tools. Can be used:

• a grinder with a nozzle;
• spatulas, chisels, scrapers;
• hammer drill or electric drill with a nozzle;
• paint thinners;
• ax;
• building hair dryer.

There are three ways to clean the walls of old paint, each of which has its pros and cons.

Mechanical

The mechanical method is the most dusty, but the least toxic compared to the next two. You can remove the paint using the manual method: beat off individual parts of the surface with an ax or a hammer with a chisel. If you choose the right angle of inclination of the ax, the paint will be easily removed.

When working with a grinder there will be a lot of dust, so it is better to use a puncher or drill with a nozzle from a chain. The tool links the chain knocks paint, which flies pieces and does not dust.

Chemical

This method is less time consuming. It is necessary to apply a special reagent to the surface, under the influence of which the paint softens and is removed by a scraper.

Thermal

This method is simple, but toxic, as well as chemical. Its essence is to heat the surface with a building hairdryer until the paint starts to bubble, and remove it with a scraper.

Important points:

1. To make it easier to remove water-based paint from concrete, moisten the surface with iodine solution (10 ml. iodine per 1 liter of water).
2. To remove acrylic paint, you must first spray the wall with water with the addition of alcohol or acetone.
3. Oil, water emulsion and acrylic paints are successfully removed in all three ways.

Get rid of the old whitewash

Old whitewashing can be removed in two ways - dry and wet.

Dry whitening method

You will need:

• respirator;
• Sander.

A lot of dust during operation is a significant minus of this method. All furniture should be removed from the room or packed in a protective film. The plus is that the grinder will quickly clean the walls of whitewash without damaging them.

Wet method

Tools needed to remove whitewash:

• putty knife;
• bucket with water;
• sponge;
• brush.

In this case, the old whitewash will need to be washed off, abundantly wetting the walls with water using a sponge. Whitened whitewash is removed with a spatula, and the remaining places are brushed and washed off with water to the base.

We remove the old plaster

To decide whether to remove all the plaster or not, you need to tap it with the handle of a spatula. In places where there is emptiness, a dull sound will be heard.

To remove the old plaster, you will need one of the following tools:

• putty knife;
• scraper;
• hammer drill;
• Bulgarian;
• plaster remover.

Algorithm plaster wall cleaning simple:

• Beating off old plaster with a spatula or hammer. If it does not move well, use a grinder, punch or a special machine with abrasive disks. Before this, the wall should be moistened with water so that there is less dust.

• Brush cleaning. To eliminate irregularities, the wall needs to be worked out with a brush or emery cloth, and then wiped with a wet rag.

Tip: so that the old plaster departs easily, it must first be moistened with water with the addition of starch (2 tbsp. l starch per liter of water).

Cleaning the wall from mold

Get rid of mold need the most radical way. If mold appeared on the wallpaper, they will have to be completely removed, and the wall surface must be thoroughly dried. Use a spatula to remove mold to the very bottom of the wall and apply an antiseptic primer to the cleaned wall.

Tip. The usual table vinegar copes well with mold. It is applied to mold-infected areas and washed off after an hour. For the purpose of prevention, repeat the procedure several times. Also in the fight against mold, baking soda is effective, an aqueous solution of which is sprayed onto the surface. And ammonia in half with water will help get rid of mold no worse than a purchased antiseptic.