What is the best way to remove old wallpaper from ceilings and walls?

There are several ways to remove old wallpaper from walls and ceilings. Based on our many years of experience, we recommend the following procedure.

Take a good wallpaper solvent, e.g. Brillux Tapetenablöser 146, and add it to warm water if possible. The ratio of water to wallpaper solvent should be between 1:10 and 1:20.

Alternatively, you can use household dishwashing detergent. However, this is not nearly as effective!

Now apply the mixture to the wall with a roller. Let it soak for 5-10 minutes. The soaking time is extremely important! Apply the mixture to the wall again.

You may now be able to start scraping off the wallpaper. If scraping is still difficult, repeat the application of the wallpaper solvent once again. The more wallpaper solvent penetrates to the underlying surface, the easier it is to remove the wallpaper. It may even fall off by itself, as the surfactants contained in the wallpaper solvent, dissolve structure of the old paste.

It is possible that the wallpaper solvent does not pass through the wallpaper to the old paste, either because the wallpaper has already been painted over, or because it has a waterproof vinyl coating. In this case, we recommend perforating it with a wallpaper perforator. Through the fine holes created, the wallpaper solvent can pass through the wallpaper.

We do not recommend using steam devices to remove wallpaper. This is a very expensive and, in our experience, very laborious way to remove wallpaper.