Stripped wallpaper, found this below

[Mattatooi]

Been stripping wallpaper off and came across this in the corner.

Untitled

• Mattatooi
• 11 Aug 2014
• 1

Untitled

• Mattatooi
• 11 Aug 2014
• 1

Is this something to do with damp or something? It is at a corner and the corner is the outside wall at back of house between the 2 houses (semi-detached). I was wanting to paint this wall. Now I am concerned I will not be able too. Should I just take this off?

Thanks

 

[Chri5]

Those picture don't really tell me anything.

Could you describe what you found? Is it a fillet of board of some type? As in a form of plaster board or concrete aqua board?

My initial thought would be that at one stage there was damage (maybe damp, maybe physical / mechanical) and that area has had a bit of replacement done.

Looking at the general area that wall doesn't look in good order for a smooth paint finish. Maybe you should consider getting it skimmed first?

If there's no obvious damp, if your okay about the rough look of the wall, then there's no reason why it can't be painted.

 

[Mattatooi]

All the walls in this room are solid wall. (house built 1975).

It looks like tinfoil basically. It is on top of the paint undercoat.

The walls are actually not too bad. On another wall the undercoat paint that was put on the plaster was coming off.. so ended up just peeling all that off on that wall, and I'm considering just taking off the undercoat paint on the wall in the picture as well, but means that tinfoil stuff comes off. I have found it in a few places. Thats the biggest area. There was a much smaller bit in the other corner of that wall (its the south facing back of house wall).

I took some of the tinfoil stuff off in another corner by accident as I was simply peeling back the undercoat paint off the walls. The plaster underneath seems fine.

So I just don't understand what it is and why its there?

 

[Chri5]

Is it foil insulation / reflective stuff that you might have behind a radiator. Are the locations you've found it possibly old radiator positions?

 

[misterhelpful]

It's bog standard kitchen foil. It's probably been put there to combat mould from condensation build up in the corner(s) of the room(s). I've reluctantly applied some myself in the past, at the request of a customer, and was surprised to find that it did help a bit.

You can get proper anti damp foil which has a bitumen type backing but judging by the jagged edge on the smaller piece of yours, I'm pretty sure it's just what was left on the roll after cooking a Christmas turkey one year!

I would just remove it and see what is underneath. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you found staining from previous mould.