How can I remove vinyl base without damaging the drywall?

Question

My house has vinyl base material attached to the walls in the laundry room and bathrooms. This material is glued directly to the drywall. It is presently unclear if the glue was a pre-applied layer on the back of the base material or if the glue was applied in a separate step.

I want to know how to remove this base material with minimal damage to the underling drywall. Previous experience in another house has shown that the outright brute force removal of the base material will rip the paper off the drywall leaving a huge mess to repair.

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score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 18 '13 at 20:35

3

Buy tall trim to cover up the glue issues or just skim coat the whole area. You will spend more time tying to get this off clean then ripping and skim coating the area.

answered Sep 18 '13 at 20:35

DMoore

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score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 18 '13 at 20:18

The problem is that the glue sticks to the paper better than the paper sticks to the gypsum. You need to weaken the glue.

As an experiment, try heating up a small patch with a blow drier and see if it works. If it does, go out and buy an electric heat gun.

How can I remove vinyl base without damaging the drywall?

2 Answers2