Removing paper-backed Aluminium Foil from walls

[grimbo]

I would really appreciate it if anyone has any handy tips for quick ways to remove paper-backed aluminium foil from walls.

The previous owner of the house that we moved into put this paper on chimney breasts prior to covering with "normal" wallpaper. I want my builder to skim the wall with new plaster because I want to paint the walls rather than re-paper them: hence the need to remove all of the foil paper.

Even using a steam stripper, the stuff is a nightmare to get off. The top layer of foil comes off easily enough (usually along with the wallpaper that is stuck on top) but this only reveals a black plastic-like coating which sits on top of a brown paper layer.

It is currently taking about 30+ mins to strip a square foot of this black stuff off: with prolonged heating from the steam, it eventually goes gooey and comes off (clogging up the scraper as it goes).

As I said at the top, any advice would be really appreciated!!

 

[masona]

Might be easier if you don't mind paying out to use plasterboards with dot & dab method or battening then skim it over with plaster finish.

 

[grimbo]

Actually I've decided to go down a similar route. We considered plasterboarding over but we have plaster coving which would have to be knocked off because the walls would be stood proud from the coving. We are getting our builder to knock off the plaster with the paper on and then re-plaster/skim. There's quite a few small crumbly patches dotted around which would need to be redone anyway : so I dont feel quite so bad about the additional expense