What order do I strip a room out in?
Isolate, record, save what you are keeping, then soft strip, then linings, then structure last. Why the order matters, and the two steps everyone skips.
- Difficulty
- intermediate
- Time
- 10 min
- Read
- 5 min
- Safety
- warning
Short answer
Isolate the services and prove them dead. Photograph every wall. Take out what you are keeping — skirting, architrave, doors, cornice — carefully and first, because anything removed with a bar cannot be refitted. Then soft strip everything that unscrews, then the linings, then structure last and only where it has been designed and propped. Waste out continuously, not in a heap.
Stripping out looks like the easy part and it is where most of the avoidable damage happens: a period skirting board broken because it came off during the wrecking rather than before it, a cable cut because nobody isolated, a floor loaded with rubble because it was easier to pile it up than carry it out.
Safety
Step by step
- Isolate everything, and prove it.Circuits off at the consumer unit, locked off if you can, and proved dead with an approved two-pole tester at each point you will touch. Water off at the stopcock and drained down from the lowest point. Gas is a Gas Safe engineer's job. Nothing else starts until this is done.
- Photograph everything before it is covered.Every wall, from a fixed position, with something for scale. Then photograph again once the plaster is off and the cables and pipes are exposed. Those second photographs are the ones you will want in five years when you drill a wall, and nobody ever takes them.
- Take out what you are keeping, first and carefully.Original skirting, architrave, doors and their ironmongery, cornice, fireplace surrounds, floorboards. Remove them before the wrecking starts, with the right tools, and label and store them flat. Anything removed carefully can go back; anything removed with a bar in the middle of a strip-out cannot.
- Soft strip next.Carpets and underlay, curtains and poles, furniture, light fittings, sanitaryware, kitchen units, radiators. Everything that unscrews rather than breaks. This is also the stage where anything worth reusing or selling still has value.
- Then the linings.Plasterboard, panelling, tiles, and plaster where it is coming off. This is the dusty stage and it is the one the barrier and the airflow were set up for. Do not start it until the protection is in.
- Structure last, and only where it is designed.Anything loadbearing has been established, calculated, approved and propped before a single brick comes out. Discovering a wall is structural during a strip-out is the worst way to find out, and it is entirely avoidable.
- Get the waste out continuously.A stripped room fills faster than anyone expects, and a suspended floor loaded with rubble is a structural question of its own. Bag as you go, carry out as you go, and keep the route clear — the route is also your escape route.
- Watch for asbestos the whole way through.Textured coatings, insulating board behind a fire surround or in a soffit, cement sheet, vinyl floor tiles and the black bitumen adhesive under them. Anything from before 2000 is a candidate. Stop and get it tested rather than deciding it is probably fine.
- Finish with the room swept, safe and photographed.That is the condition the next trade prices and works from. A room left with nails proud, rubble in the corners and a live cable taped up is where the next problem comes from.
Tips
- Score the paint line along the top of a skirting board and along the architrave before levering. It is thirty seconds and it is the difference between reusable trim and torn plaster.
- Number the back of everything you take off and draw a rough plan of where it came from. Skirting lengths are all slightly different and they only fit back where they were.
- Keep one bag for anything metal — copper pipe, cable offcuts, brass fittings. It is worth something at a scrap merchant and it is one of the few parts of a renovation that pays.
Common mistakes
- Starting before isolating — A cable in a wall does not look live and is. This is the single most dangerous shortcut in a strip-out and it is taken because the room looks empty and harmless.
- Wrecking first and salvaging afterwards — Original joinery, cornice and fireplaces are the things a house cannot easily get back, and they are usually broken in the first hour by someone who meant to save them later.
- Piling the waste in the room — It loads a floor that was designed for furniture, it blocks the route out, and it doubles the handling because it all has to be moved twice.
- Cutting into a textured ceiling to see what is behind it — Textured coatings from before 2000 may contain asbestos, and cutting one is exactly the disturbance that releases fibres. Test first.
If it doesn't work
A skirting board split as it came off
Cause: Levering against the plaster, or not scoring the paint line first — Fix: Keep the pieces — a good joiner can often scarf a length back together, and a broken original is still a pattern for a matching profile. Score before levering on everything that follows.
Something has been found that might be asbestos
Cause: A pre-2000 material disturbed or about to be — Fix: Stop, leave the area, and get a sample analysed by a UKAS-accredited laboratory. Do not carry on and do not clean it up. GuideHQ has guides on asbestos surveys and on asbestos cement.
A wall you were removing turns out to be carrying something
Cause: It was not established as non-loadbearing before work started — Fix: Stop and prop, and get a structural engineer to it. Do not carry on to find out how much it is carrying.
Questions people ask
Can I strip a room out myself and have a builder do the rest?
Often yes, and it is one of the more genuinely useful things a householder can do — it is labour rather than skill. Agree it explicitly with the builder, including what condition they want the room left in and who takes the waste away, because both change their price.
What can I do with the waste?
Household waste sites take some of it in limited quantities and refuse plasterboard mixed with anything else, because gypsum in landfill produces hydrogen sulphide. A skip or a registered waste carrier is the usual answer, and it is your duty of care to check the carrier is registered.
Is anything worth keeping?
Original doors, ironmongery, fireplaces, cast iron radiators, floorboards and cornice all have a market and are all hard to replace convincingly. Architectural salvage yards will often collect.