Removing old wall paper that has been painted over

[theatrebecky]

I am working on a house from the early 1800s which has been wallpapered and painted. There are at least 3 layers of wall paper and at least 3 layers of paint on top of the wallpaper. So far nothing has worked to remove all layers. Scoring the painted paper has not proved successful, especially since the paint is over 60years old. It could even be lead based paint. Nothing seems to penetrate the paint and the wallpaper. At this rate they will be paying me to remove wallpaper for the next 2years! We have used DIF, Pine Sol, Paint thinner, Lestoil, water, razors and a lot of elbow grease. I've been told that a steamer wont make it past the paint. Anyone have any other suggestions?

[pushkins]

Yep, your in a difficult situation on this project. The steamer won't make it past a layer of paint as you mentioned, same bodes for the other products like DIF etc.... I have seen at a Sherwin Williams store a product that might help you but I cannot for the life of me remember the name. I'm not sure it's going to go through three layers but it would be well worth your while to at least call your local store. The product isn't generally available at big box stores, mainly due to the chemicals involved.
One thing you are going to have to be VERY careful about is that this house being 1800's vintage will most probably have plaster walls (with lathe) and probably animal hair as a binding medium in the plaster, this does not like chemicals at all.

Most often when I've done major renovation work on old homes it is sometimes a better option to mud skim coat the walls and apply new paint/wallpaper. A couple of times we stripped back the plaster and lathe and started with all new drywall, it really depends on the condition of the plaster and the desired finished result.

[HayZee518]

Red Devil makes a tool for removing old wallpaper from plaster walls. It is a razor scraper with its head at an angle and has a long handle. It takes 4 inch razor blades. Once you start to strip the paper it all comes off quite easily.

[monik]

3 layers of wallpaper isnt gonna be a problem, you should just take the first layer which has been painted over so many times because this is what stops the steamer from penetrating and perfect way of doing this is to score the top layer( you said you've done that ) but this time use a scorer tool that comes with a product that dissolves the glue behind the paper.there are many of those but the one i used and worked out briliant was wallwik
once you take off that top layer the rest will come out easily