You can remove wallpaper glue from the wall with a homemade solution that requires the following few ingredients:

• Hot water
• Liquid dishwashing soap 
• White vinegar 
• Baking soda 

Wallpaper glue can be stubborn and hard to remove if you don’t know the trick around it and are without the right solution.

Just imagine how bonded wallpaper glue is to the wall after it has sat on it for a significant amount of time. 

If you need to remove wallpaper glue from a larger portion of the wall or perhaps from the entirety, there are a few pre-steps you will need to take.

Don’t worry; these aren’t complicated. 

Check out our general guide on removing glue from walls for other materials besides wallpapers.

What To Do Before Removing Wallpaper Glue From The Wall?

This pre-step is important if there is wallpaper glue covering a significant, most, or all of the wall, involving:

• Your furniture 
• Your floor and carpet
• Your electrical outlets and light switches 

The furniture part is usually a no-brainer. When you renovate a room, either painting, peeling off (or, in many cases scraping off) wallpaper from the wall requires much movement and flexibility. 

If you can, the easiest way to work in a room, especially on a bigger surface, is to remove furniture from that room completely, or at least pull it all together and cover them up for protection. 

Once your furniture is taken care of, you need to consider the carpets and the flooring in that room. Carpets may be easier to handle.

If you can roll it up and move it into a different room, that would be ideal for protecting it from accidental spills or dust. 

But what about the floor? It’s not like you can roll it up and take it to a different room.

But there is an easy solution you can implement to protect your floor, especially because you will be working with a solution that could potentially drip down or spill accidentally. 

Use a large plastic cover (the thicker, the better so it won’t tear open as you walk on it) to place on your floor, fully covering the working area. Use painter’s paint to tape the plastic cover all across the edges. 

This will secure the cover so it won’t move as you walk on it. But it will also seal its edges, not letting any accidental spills or drips get under it, fully protecting your floors. 

Now let’s talk about the electrical outlets and light switches on your walls. 

You will work with a homemade solution to remove wallpaper glue from your walls. This solution will be very wet.

So it is important to prevent it from accidentally contacting any electrical outlets and light switches. 

How can you do that? Use painter’s tape to securely and fully cover them up. Don’t over-saturate the wall with the solution when you work around them. It is better to take longer and do this safely. 

If it is doable, turn off the power from the breaker. It would help if you left it off while you were working on the wall and until the wall had fully dried afterward. 

An Extra Caution When Working On A Drywall

Drywall isn’t as resistant to wet solutions as other types of walls. If you over-saturate a wall with a wet solution, or even just water, the drywall may soak it in, which could significantly damage it. 

If you over-saturate the drywall with a wet solution, and the wall gets wet, it could get damaged beyond repair. This could mean you need to replace that portion of your drywall. 

This does not mean that you can not use this method on drywall to remove wallpaper glue. It simply means that you need to be careful not to over-saturate, only dampen as lightly as possible. 

Prepare The Solution 

Depending on the surface of your wall that you need to remove wallpaper glue from, a bowl or bucket may be enough to mix the solution.

If most of your wall has wallpaper glue stuck on it, you must mix the adhesive-removing solution a few times. 

Here is what you need to make the solution:

• Hot water 
• Liquid dishwashing soap 
• Distilled white vinegar 
• Baking soda 
• One bucket 

Follow these steps to mix the adhesive removing solution:

1. In a pan, heat about one gallon of water (or enough to almost fill up your bucket)
2. When the water is hot, carefully pour it into the bucket 
3. Add 1 teaspoon of liquid dishwashing soap 
4. Add 1-2 cups of white distilled vinegar
5. Add 1 tablespoon of baking soda
6. Mix well 

Besides an adhesive removing solution, you will also need a cleaning bucket or bowl ready. 

So here are a few more items to have ready:

• Protective gloves – to protect your hands
• Clean sponge – to apply the solution to the wallpaper glue
• Clean rag and clean, warm water – to clean the solution off the wall after you have removed the wallpaper glue

This also works if you want to remove glue from the wall.

How To Apply The Adhesive Removing Solution To Remove Wallpaper Glue

So let’s start from the top of the wall and move downward. If you use a stepladder, make sure it is sturdy and reliable. 

If you have a cellulose type of sponge, use this. 

Work in small sections.  Do not apply the solution to the whole wall all at once. Work in a small area first and move on to another section when all wallpaper glue has been removed, and that area has been cleaned. 

As much as you can, keep the solution hot and warm. The colder it gets, it could lose some of its effectiveness. You may need to scrub more with a cold lotion to remove the glue. 

Follow these steps to remove wallpaper glue with the solution you just finished preparing:

1. Dab the sponge in the solution (don’t squeeze it too hard so it stays wet, make sure it isn’t dripping)
2. Apply medium pressure and use a circular motion to rub the solution into a smaller section of the glue on the wall 
3. Thoroughly get the glue wet with the solution 
4. Do this for a few minutes 
5. Once the glue seems wet enough, use a cloth to wipe off the adhesive. You may need to rinse frequently, especially if glue residue gets on it. If the glue is still very stubborn, you can try scraping it off with a putty knife or scraper. 
6. Continue this until there is no residue left.
7. Dampen a clean cloth in warm water and wipe off that area of the wall to clean the solution off the wall 
8. Move on to the next smaller section. 

If the wallpaper glue is stubborn, you may need to re-apply the solution multiple times. Remember, this process may take time, but it works.  

Once you have finished removing wallpaper glue, allow the wall enough time to air dry fully. If you increase airflow circulation (leaving windows open, having a fan in the room), the walls may dry faster and better. 

Before you paint or apply new wallpaper to the wall, ensure the walls are fully dry. 

This method also works if you want to remove bandage glue from your skin.

Conclusion

Removing wallpaper glue may seem daunting and almost like an impossible mission. But it shouldn’t be.

Yes, it may take some time to remove wallpaper glue, especially if a huge portion of the wall is covered, but it can be done. 

And the solution isn’t complicated or complex. You only need a few simple ingredients to prepare the solution at home. These are: 

• Hot water
• Liquid dishwashing soap 
• White vinegar 
• Baking soda 

But before you start removing wallpaper glue, make sure you first clear the area as much as you can. 

Protect any furniture that remains in the room. Then, remove all carpets and cover the floor with a plastic sheet, securing it with painter’s tape. 

Don’t forget the electrical outlets and light switches on the walls. Cover these with painter’s paint to prevent moisture or accidental drips from coming in contact with them. 

If you are working on drywall, don’t oversaturate. If you get the wall too wet, this could damage the wall, especially when you need to scrub the glue away. 

Depending on the type of adhesive used, wallpaper glue may be quite challenging to remove. If this is the case, don’t lose hope. This same solution still works; it just may take longer. 

Re-apply the solution as many times as necessary, and keep it hot as that’s when it is the most effective.