Renovation plasterboard over Tretex. Do I need to remove the textured wallpaper?

[F.Persson]

Bought a house where the walls and sloped ceiling in the "hall" upstairs are half covered with tretex with fiberglass wallpaper. Behind the tretex, there are tongue and groove boards, at least where I can see from the back through the attic.

I have read several posts here on the forum where people have described that it works well to screw renovation plasterboard on top of the tretex and into the boards behind. But the question is whether it’s fine for the wallpaper to stay or should I remove it first?

 

[Dowser4711]

Bought a house where the walls and sloped ceiling in the "hall" on the upper floor are half made up of tretex with fiberglass wallpaper. Behind the tretex are tongue-and-groove boards, at least where I can see from the back through the attic.

I have read several here on the forum who have described that it works well to screw renovation plaster on top of the tretex and into the boards behind. But the question is whether it's okay for the wallpaper to remain or should I remove it first?

Yes, it will only improve the durability of the wall with that poor material.
If you're going to screw the plaster in place then there's absolutely no problem.
If you're planning to glue it, it depends more on whether the wallpaper adheres well enough to the tretex.

 

[F.Persson]

Yes, it will certainly improve the durability of the wall with that junk material.
If you're going to screw the plasterboard, it's absolutely no problem.
If you plan to glue it, it depends more on whether the wallpaper is well adhered to the tretex.

Thanks for the response!
Yes, tretex seems to be a less popular material here in the forum .
I will go ahead and screw renovation plasterboard in the hallway. I can't access the bedrooms to check what's behind, so there I might have to tear down and put up 13mm plasterboard instead. But it's nice not to have to tear down everywhere.

 

[Paul-Staffanstorp]

Screwing up 6mm renovation plasterboard is really not okay and the risk is significantly high that it will come loose and result in a really poor final outcome. The reason is that it's too thin to be screwed. It's the same thickness as the screw head, which makes it go through and then you lose the structural integrity. If you manage to get the head to just barely sink into the paper layer everywhere, it might work, but with such a soft substrate as tretex, I wouldn't consider it an optimal solution at all. Renovation plasterboard is intended to be glued up.

If you can't be bothered to remove and replace the tretex with 13mm plasterboard, then at least I would put 13mm on top of the tretex. Personally, I would remove the tretex because I don't like to do half-jobs.

 

[snuttjulle]

And I, who like my tretex, wonder why you have to do anything other than just paint the woven wallpaper. Tretex gives less echo and is awesome for easily putting things up when there are boards behind it. Or rather, it's easy to make small marks disappear after a nail or screw by just rubbing a little so it closes up. But sure, it's troublesome to try to spackle it completely smooth and can be tricky in the seams if it's not painted before spackle and wallpaper.

 

[F.Persson]

Can't stand the woven wallpaper, and want smooth walls instead; furthermore, the wallpaper came off the tretex when we removed the baseboards, even though we tried to do it carefully.

Ended up removing the tretex everywhere and putting up 13mm drywall instead.