Cleaning Plaster Walls

[Lennon]

Apologies if this is in the wrong topic forum - not sure if it should be here, or in Plastering... Anyway hope someone can assist

Problem is this - am re-doing our hallway which has sauna-esque wood cladding on the walls. Want to strip this off, smooth walls and paint but I've taken the wood cladding off in one place and whilst the plaster underneath is in reasonable condition there is quite a lot of dark brown, very solid dried glue type material on the surface (presumably which was previously holding the cladding onto the wall). How do I remove this? It is in large lumps, and so am not convinced that sanding it down is the right answer - takes far too long . Am thinking that an old sharp chisel might be the answer, and run this along the wall, but thought I'd ask peoples opinion first - I really, really don't want to knock holes out the plaster in doing it. Cheers in advance

 

[54aardvark]

You don't say whether its Plaster-on-Hard or Plasterboard, if its the latter you could end up with a lot of damage which would require at least lining paper or worst case a skim.

Assuming its plaster and its in realtively good condition I wouldn't worry overmuch about the odd nick with a sharp scraper, you'll probably have some filling to do anyway.

Steamer would be a good start, should at least soften the glue and make it easier to scrape.

If that doesn't work you're into solvents and I'll leave that to those who are more knowledgable than Me.

If the glue is water based and has soaked into the plaster you may be left with a residue that could leach through and stain the finish depending on type of glue - I would imagine you have as much idea what it is as I do! In which case you may need to seal the areas with something like Zinsser.

Hope this is some use to you, let us know how you get on.