just trying to get old wallpaper paste off the walls so i can just pain
them. been scrubbing with sugar soap, but doesnt appear to be shiftin it particulary well...
just wondered if it goes off with age, as this is stuff had in th garage for last year or so... it doesnt seem to pong as much as remember??
any advice?
thanks
-- ceg
its only soap powder. Not much use for removing wallpaper. Whats wanted is steam, or if that's out of stock, very hot water.
NT
No it's not.
Agreed. Plus lots of clean rags (or keep rinsing out the one you have).
its patches of wallpaper paste i'm trying to get rid of... the lovel wallpaper has all gone now!! :-) i didnt know whether they had change the formula/deteiorated with age as it doesnt seem as "strong" as i was..
-- ceg
He's not trying to remove the wallpaper though, just the remaining paste.
Sugar soap removes grease and is ok to remove static grime, but not wallpaper paste which is pretty much starch or equivalent; soaking with hot water is best.
Sugar soap may be scented, and this will be fugitive, (if you can smell something it must be at least slightly volatile) but the underlying surfactants are relatively stable with respect to time. Are you using hot water? The compounds used in modern (i.e. the last 20+ years) are appreciably less soluble in hot water than cold.
The old starch pastes required cooking up to solubilise the starch. Then along came cellulose ether types which needed pouring into hot water to prevent clumping and being left to cool with occasional stirring. Then the technology came along to coat the cellulose with glyoxal, which dissolves relatively slowly, allowing the powder to be added to cold water and be stirred for a few minutes until the paste was ready. The latest generations are based on starch ethers, a chemically modified starch requiring no boiling, just stirring into cold water. The high-strength types may also contain redispersible PVA powder. I will leave the readers to fathom why the market leading (when I worked in the field) Celacol WA was so designated.
John Schmitt
Which is why he needs water or steam to soften the paste, plus clean=20 rags to make sure he's taking it off and not just spreading it around.
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