Can someone tell me what this wall treatment is please

[Salik]

I am renovating one room and have removed the builtin wardrobes and am now removing all the wallpaper.
I found a section of wall which is covered in some material which is black and water resistant. There is also what looks like foil.

I wonder if it's some type of vapour barrier?

I plan on painting the room so I am not sure if I should try and remove it. Could I paint over it?

Salik.

 

[cross thread]

Looks like someone has tried to insulate / stop damp with silver foil

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

It's a thin barrier formed with foil and bitumen (https://coveryourwall.co.uk/products/wallrock-dampstop-thermic) commonly used in situations like this to stop damp, a decorators get-out really, I only discovered it because I found out the wall beneath the bay window in our house has this applied, then its been papered over, by all accounts it's actually fairly successful at stopping damp getting through the wall but obviously does not solve the problem, if there was one. As soon as I found a tiny bit of this I could see it was damp behind so paused and did some googling, I carefully glued back the bit I peeled off and decorated over the lot, no way I'm exposing the horrors that may lie beneath now, I'll leave having to rebuild the whole of the bay under the window for another life!

This is not to be confused with the high quality foil/bitumen composite membranes available nowadays that can be used to line roofs etc.

 

[Salik]

Thank you. Unfortunately I have to remove the wallpaper and that will remove the foil. Perhaps I can leave the rest and paint over it. Not sure what base layer I should use though.

Than there is also that pink. I think that's some old surface prep. I'm scraping off what comes off easily and just leaving the rest.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Behind a wardrobe is quite susceptible to a bit of condensation caused by poor air movement, so you might find there are no damp issues per se, they merely applied this stuff to prevent the damp spots showing through. You'll just have to see. The pink looks like old paint but not a very clear pic. I've used Zinsser Gardz primer on problem areas, seems to be an effective primer for use over all manor of sins.

 

[Salik]

Indeed the material is only on a small section in the south east corner and now the wardrobes are gone there should hopefully be no issues. The house was vacant for a number of years so some of the mold and damp in the house is from lack of heating.

Wallpaper on remainder was wood chip which has been painted. Very difficult to remove cleanly.

I've uploaded a pic. Hopefully this is better.