How to remove gotelé popcorn texture: methods, machines and how long it takes

What you need

• 5 litre pressure sprayer (garden type) or a thick wool roller
• 15-20 cm steel scraper and a long-handled scraper
• 30 cm stainless steel plastering trowel and a 10 cm filling knife for the filler
• Giraffe-type long-reach wall sander with dust extraction (hire from Leroy Merlin or Bricodepot, 25-40 euros a day) or a large sanding block
• Vacuum cleaner with a filter
• Stepladder, dust sheets, masking tape, goggles and an FFP2 mask
• Water with a few drops of washing-up liquid, or a gotelé remover (Titan Quitagotelé, Aguaplast Despegagotelé)
• Skimming filler in powder or ready-mixed paste: Aguaplast Alisar or Renovación, Beissier Standard, 2-3 kg per m² over two coats
• Sandpaper in 80, 120 and 180 grit
• Water-based stabilising sealer or primer
• Matt emulsion or acrylic paint for the finish

Step by step

1. 1

   Check whether it is distemper or plastic

   Spray water on a 30x30 cm patch of wall, wait 10 minutes and scrape with the scraper. If the gotelé softens and comes away like mud, it is distemper: follow the wet method. If the water runs off and the gotelé stays hard, it has been painted with plastic emulsion and you go to the section on methods for plastic gotelé. In flats in Valencia and Alicante built before 1995 almost all of it is distemper, often repainted with plastic paint on top.

2. 2

   Empty and protect the room

   Take the furniture out or group it in the middle under plastic sheeting. Cover the floor with plastic and cardboard (wet gotelé stains badly). Switch off the circuit for the room at the consumer unit and tape over sockets and switches. Remove the skirting boards if you plan to replace them; if not, protect them with tape.

3. 3

   Soak the wall

   With the sprayer or the roller, wet the wall from top to bottom with water and a few drops of washing-up liquid (or the gotelé remover). Work in patches of 2-3 m² so it does not dry out. Wait 15-20 minutes and wet it again. The wall has to be saturated; the most common mistake is not using enough water.

4. 4

   Scrape

   With the wide scraper at a 30 degree angle, scrape from the bottom upwards. Distemper comes off in strips like mud. Where it will not come off, wet it again and wait. Do not force it dry: you tear the plaster underneath and then there is more to skim. Shovel up the wet gotelé before it dries on the floor.

5. 5

   Wash and let it dry

   Go over the wall with a sponge or a roller and clean water to remove the remains of distemper, which stop the filler bonding if they are left behind. Leave to dry for 24 hours with the window open. The wall has to be dry to the touch with no dark patches.

6. 6

   Apply the sealer

   Give it a coat of water-based stabilising sealer or primer with a roller. It seals the plaster, which is porous after scraping, and stops the filler losing its water too fast and cracking.

7. 7

   Skim with two coats of filler

   Mix the filler as the manufacturer says and apply a first coat with the trowel in vertical strokes, 1-2 mm thick, covering the unevenness. Leave to dry for 4-6 hours. Sand lightly with 80 grit to take off any ridges, then apply a second coat in horizontal strokes. If the wall was badly damaged, a third coat is needed.

8. 8

   Sand, prime and paint

   With the wall dry, sand with the giraffe or the block using 120 grit and finish with 180 until you cannot feel a single trowel mark when you run your hand over it. Vacuum the dust, apply a coat of primer and then two coats of emulsion. Raking light from a window shows every defect: look along the wall from the side before painting.

Plastic gotelé: sand it off by machine or skim over it

If the gotelé has been painted with plastic emulsion, water does not get in and the wet method is useless. That leaves three options, from cleanest to most laborious.

Skim over it. Apply a coat of bonding primer and then two or three coats of skimming filler straight over the gotelé until the relief is covered. It is the method we use most: no dust, no damage to the plaster and the result is the same. It uses more filler (3-4 kg per m²) and the wall gets 3-5 mm thicker, which you will not notice in a home.

Sand it off by machine. A giraffe-type wall sander with dust extraction (Bosch, Einhell, or hired) with 40-60 grit takes the relief off plastic gotelé. It is fast on big walls but produces a lot of fine dust, means an FFP2 mask and goggles, and the corners have to be finished by hand. Afterwards you skim with one or two coats of filler just as in the wet method.

Dry scrape with a carbide scraper. Only for plastic paint over distemper gotelé: sometimes the plastic paint lifts off in strips with a carbide scraper and the distemper appears underneath, which can then be wetted and scraped. It is slow and depends on the individual wall.

Forget the heat gun and chemical strippers: the gun blisters the paint but not the gotelé, and stripper is expensive, toxic and does not help at all.

How long it takes to remove gotelé

The real time is the figure almost nobody gives you. These numbers are for one person with no experience and a room with 12 m² of floor (about 30-35 m² of wall, not counting the ceiling).

Common mistakes when removing gotelé

• Scraping with too little water. This is mistake number one. The wall has to be soaked; if you scrape dry you tear the plaster and multiply the skimming work.
• Skimming over remains of distemper. Filler does not bond to distemper and comes away in sheets within a year. Wash the wall and apply sealer first.
• One thick coat of filler. It cracks as it dries. Two or three thin coats, sanding between them.
• Sanding without extraction or a mask. The dust from filler and old paint stays in the house, and in your lungs, for weeks. A giraffe sander with a vacuum or, at the very least, an FFP2 mask and open windows.
• Painting without priming. The filler absorbs the paint unevenly and the wall ends up patchy.
• Doing one room and leaving the rest. The jump from smooth wall to gotelé in a hallway shows. Plan it by complete areas.

When to call a professional

Removing the gotelé from one room is a long weekend and perfectly doable. Removing it from a whole flat is two or three weeks of work for someone without experience, with the house upside down. A team of two painters does it in 4-6 days with dust-extracting machines and the trowel finish that only comes with practice. And if the gotelé has lead paint on it (from before the 1980s) or there is damp underneath, that has to be dealt with first.

At Manitas Costa removing gotelé and skimming costs 12-18 euros per m² of wall, with filler, sanding and primer included, and painting afterwards in white 6-8 euros per m². A 90 m² flat with around 220 m² of wall comes to 2,600-4,000 euros all in. Fixed price after a visit or from photos and measurements by WhatsApp, 6 months written guarantee and an invoice with IVA (VAT).

More information in painters in Valencia and Alicante, in how much it costs to remove gotelé and in how much it costs to paint a flat. We work in Valencia, Alicante, Benidorm, Torrevieja and all along the coast.

Damp, salt and old walls on the coast

Gotelé in homes near the beach often hides old damp problems: stains, salt that blooms as a white powder (salitre, as locals call it) and patches of soft plaster. They appear as you scrape. Do not just cover them with filler: the first thing is to confirm the damp is not active (an outside wall in Torrevieja or Santa Pola can be damp from water getting in or from condensation). Then brush it down, apply an anti-salt treatment and sealer, and in bathrooms and kitchens use anti-damp paint.

In flats that are shut up over winter, do the job in spring or autumn: in summer the filler dries too fast and cracks, and in winter with high humidity it takes twice as long to dry.

If scraping reveals old wall plug holes, chases or cracks, fill them before the first coat of filler as we explain in how to fill holes in a wall. And if you are going to paint in a colour afterwards, allow 10-12 euros per m² instead of 6-8, because colour needs two full coats.