How to remove paint from walls

Video: Home Improvements : Removing Old Wall Paint

Content

Steps
Method 1 of 3: Removing paint with sandpaper
Method 2 of 3: Removing paint from concrete walls with a solvent
Method 3 of 3: Removing paint from wooden walls with a hot air gun
What do you need
Cleaning the walls with sandpaper
Cleaning walls with solvent
Cleaning the walls with a technical hairdryer

During the renovation of an apartment, we often face unforeseen difficulties. However, armed with the knowledge and the right tools, you can tackle any challenge - like removing old paint from walls with ease! Disappointed with your chosen shade? Want to change the color scheme of the walls? Old paint can be removed with a scraper, sandpaper, paint thinner, or a technical hair dryer. Choose a method based on your budget, the type of walls and paint, and your skill with the tool. After you have decided which method suits you best, prepare everything you need, and the old paint simply will not have a chance!

Steps

Method 1 of 3: Removing paint with sandpaper

1 Clean the wall with soap and hot water. To prepare the wall for sandpapering, first fill the bucket with hot soapy water. Soak a rag in water and wash the wall. Over the years, a coating of dirt forms on the surface of the wall; removing the paint will make it much easier to remove the paint.
2 Buy a wall sander. Rubbing the wall by hand with a piece of sandpaper is unproductive, so we recommend that you buy a sanding block or a hand sander. A sanding block is a small, parallelepiped-shaped object made of hard material over which sandpaper is stretched. A hand grinder is like a drill or grinder; it is also filled with sandpaper. Both of these devices make it much easier to clean the walls.
- Typically, sanding stones have clamps to hold the sandpaper in place. Secure one edge of the sandpaper with a clip, then pull it tight and secure the other edge.
- Sandpaper can be loaded into grinding machines in different ways: as a rule, there is a special groove or clamping mechanism for this. If you haven’t used a sander before, it’s safer to use a stone.
- When cleaning walls from old paint, it is perfectly acceptable to use coarse sandpaper. For thick layers of paint, use 20-H coarse sandpaper (P80).
- When sanding the walls, a large amount of fine toxic dust is formed, therefore it is necessary to work with a respirator.
3 Remove the top coat of paint. Remove paint from the wall with the grainy side of sandpaper inserted into a sanding block or sander. Press the sandpaper against the wall and scrub the wall evenly in different directions, sanding off squares of approximately 10 cm². If you are using the manual method, press the sanding block firmly against the wall.
- Treat the entire surface of the wall to fade all old paint. Then dust off the wall.
4 Any remaining paint can be removed from the walls with a scraper. If you don't want to paint over the old paint, use a scraper to remove the old paint from the wall completely.
- Use a scraper to pick up a layer of paint at the bottom of the wall and run it from the bottom up to peel off the paint in a stripe.
- After sandpapering the wall, the paint does not hold well, and it will become easier to clean it with a scraper.

Method 2 of 3: Removing paint from concrete walls with a solvent

1 Prepare rubber gloves and work in a well-ventilated area. Paint strippers are quite corrosive as they are classified as chemical solvents. Make sure you have purchased chemical gloves before starting work. Work in old, unnecessary clothes that you are not sorry to throw away.
- Open windows. Be sure to ventilate the area when working with solvent so that toxic fumes do not accumulate in the room.
2 Remove all furniture from the room and cover the floor. Chemical solvents don't care what they dissolve, so it's best to remove anything you want to protect from damage from the room, including furniture.
- To preserve the floor, you need to purchase some additional materials from the hardware store. You will need a large piece of plastic wrap and a similar piece of craft paper.
- Cover the floor with plastic, starting from the wall. Lay a layer of kraft paper on top. Now, if the solvent gets on the floor, the film and paper will protect the surface from damage.
3 Thoroughly coat the walls with paint thinner. The thinner is best applied with a wide brush. If you do not have such a brush on the farm, it is better to buy it in advance. Dip the brush in solvent and cover the entire wall with it. The solvent layer must be at least 3 mm thick, otherwise it will dry out too quickly. In this case, it is not necessary to try to apply exactly 3 mm of solvent - determine the thickness of the layer by eye.
- If you are working on vertical surfaces, choose a thick solvent that resembles a paste in consistency so that it does not run or drip onto you.
4 Wait for the solvent to work. This chemical process can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours, depending on the type of solvent. Wait as long as indicated in the instructions for use.
5 As soon as bubbles appear on the surface of the paint, the paint can be scraped off. After you have waited for the required amount of time, the paint on the walls will begin to bubble. This means it's time to grab a scraper (if you don't have a paint scraper, you can use a spatula) and scrape the paint off the walls. The paint should flake off in long stripes. Try to remove paint from the walls as much as possible.
- Use a scraper to scrape a layer of paint at the foot of the wall and scrub it from bottom to top to peel off the paint in a stripe.
- If paint remains in hard-to-reach places, you can remove it with toothpicks or a toothbrush that you will no longer use.
- If another thick layer is found under the top layer of paint, you will have to apply another layer of solvent and remove the second layer separately.
6 Following the instructions for the solvent, neutralize the wall surface after paint has been removed. If, after removing the old paint, you are going to paint the wall again, you cannot apply the paint directly to the solvent - it will not stick. Different solvents are neutralized in different ways, as is usually indicated in the instructions for use of the solvent. As a rule, this is water, white spirit or a special chemical composition.
- Some neutralizing compounds must be diluted with water in a ratio of 3.5 liters of water to 120 ml of neutralizing agent, and then wash the wall with a rag and the resulting solution.
- Read the instructions for the solvent carefully and follow the manufacturer's directions exactly.

Method 3 of 3: Removing paint from wooden walls with a hot air gun

1 Bring safety goggles, long sleeves, and thick gloves. You will be working in high temperature environments and you will need goggles, a long-sleeved shirt, and thick gloves to avoid burns.
- You will also need a paint scraper.
2 If you want to remove paint from a small area of the wall, make a heat shield. A hot air dryer is most convenient for treating large surfaces, but if you want to free a small area of paint, you will need a heat shield.
- Take a large piece of cardboard and cut a hole in it slightly larger than the area you want to remove the paint from. Wrap the screen with aluminum foil. Place the screen on the wall, aligning the hole and the area to be cleaned of paint.
3 Heat the paint with a technical hair dryer. Holding the hair dryer at a distance of 5 cm from the wall, warm up the paint on certain sections of the wall, moving the hair dryer evenly. The areas can be marked in advance using a tape measure and a pencil.
- First, warm up a 1 m² section of the wall.
- If the paint starts to move away from the wall, you can proceed to the next operation.
- If you are using a heat shield to remove paint from a small area, heat it a little less time until you see the paint start to peel off.
4 Scrape paint off the heated area. Use a scraper to remove all paint from the previously heated area. Poke through the edge of the paint with a scraper, pick up the paint from the bottom, and peel off a strip of paint as if you were clearing a path of snow.
5 Clean the rest of the wall in the same way. Select a new 1 m² square, warm it up and then remove the paint. Repeat this operation until you have removed the old paint from the entire wall, square by square.