Removing skirting boards from a plasterboard wall

If you have a modern house with plasterboard walls, it can be difficult to remove skirting boards without damaging the wall – for example to replace them when fitting laminate flooring if you don’t want to have scotia around the edge of the room.

If the skirting is nailed on, levering with a pry bar inserted behind the skirting simply pushes the bar into the soft plasterboard. The job takes a long time and is messy. Making-good the crumbled plasterboard and any torn wallpaper above the level of the skirting is also difficult. To add to the woes, the replacement skirting may need to be taller than is really suitable for the room, to cover up the damage.

Here is an easy way to remove nailed-on skirting from the wall with no significant damage to the wall behind. All you need is an electric drill, a holesaw, a bonsai bar or claw hammer, a chisel and mallet, and a keen pair of eyes. Always use power tools responsibly and safely, and use adequate eye protection.

First, identify the locations of the nails. These can usually be found by looking for significant imperfections in the paint surface. Scratch off the paint over the nail heads to make them easier to see as you’re working (see above). Don’t worry if you can’t spot all of them before you start. They will soon make themselves apparent as the skirting begins to detach, and you can remove the small number of hard-to-find ones as you go along.

 

Next, fit the holesaw to the drill and you’re ready to get going. I found a 25 mm holesaw too small for this job, but a 40 mm is big enough to drill around the nail without fouling the nail if it happens not to have been hammered in nice and straight. Mark the holesaw so that you can cut repeatedly to the same depth. I did this by wrapping gaffer tape around the outside at the depth I wanted to cut. You could scribe a line, or use bright paint if you have time to let it dry. The cutting depth should be just less than the thickness of the skirting – do not cut all the way through the board, just nearly through it.

 

The 40mm holesaw, wrapped with tape at a depth that will
not quite cut all the way through the skirting.

 

Start at one end of the skirting board. Go to where the first nail is. The holesaw has a centre locating drill. You may like to use a bradawl to create a starting point to one side of the nail, or just push the drill into the soft wood. Start far enough from the nail that you can be sure to avoid contact, either with the centre drill or the holesaw, as you drill. Contact with the nail, while drilling, can snap the drill; you could end up spending a lot of money on replacements before all the skirting is off.

Next, simply drill to cut into the skirting up to the depth you marked. Then withdraw the holesaw. If you cut right through the skirting, the circular piece of waste wood will spin around the nail quicker than you can react, which can break the centre drill.

 

 

So, with the bit of waste wood just about holding on, take the chisel and finish knocking it out. A hard whack to split it in two is a good way to start. Now, you have a large hole in the skirting around the first nail, which is no longer effectively holding the skirting to the wall.

Removing the waste wood leaves each nail holding only fresh air

Repeat this around the other nails you marked. If you located all the nails successfully before you started, the skirting will simply lift away from the wall. If there are one or two still holding on, you should be able to spot them quite easily now. Pulling the skirting back from the wall should reveal any that are particularly shy. You can then cut around these in the same way to release the skirting completely.

 

At corners, you may find that the original fitter has secured these with nails. Driving a chisel in between can split these apart. Alternatively, try holesawing around the nails on both pieces of skirting and lift the entire assembly away from the wall.

 

Then use the bonsai bar or claw hammer to pull the nails out. Placing a piece of the old skirting against the wall, to lever against, may help. Some nails may snap off rather than yield to the tugging – not a big problem, especially if you’re fixing the new skirting with gripfill. If a nail is really stubborn, gripping with pincers and wrenching from side to side can break off the exposed part. As long as it's not protruding from the plaster surface when you've finished, it won't interfere with the new skirting board.

 

 

 

 

Go round the rest of the room in the same way. When all the skirting is off, carefully remove any caulk remaining on the walls. A chisel held flush against the wall and pushed along to pare off the caulk is ideal. This takes seconds. Then admire your elegantly de-skirted room and still-immaculate plasterboard walls.

Making good is confined simply to reapplying caulk as needed after the new skirting is fitted. If you’re lucky, you may not even need to repaint the wall.