Guide
Wallpaper in South Florida humidity
Wallpaper holds up fine in a Florida house. It also fails in ways you can predict, and nearly all of them come down to which wall it went on.
Start with the air outside
West Palm Beach has a 71 year record of relative humidity behind it. Mornings average 60 percent and afternoons average 82 percent. September afternoons average 86 percent.
That is outdoor air. Indoors the air conditioner pulls a lot of it back out, which is the only reason wallpaper works here. The EPA's number for a house is under 60 percent, and 30 to 50 percent if you can hold it there.
Adhesive makers want something close to that while the paper goes up: 60 to 80 degrees, and 30 to 50 percent relative humidity.
So the question is not if wallpaper survives Florida. It is which wall, and what sits behind it. The Wall Pross hangs it and takes it down, and the answer changes wall to wall.
The rooms that suit it
Bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, hallways and studies are the easy ones. The air in them stays near whatever the thermostat says, and nothing sprays water at a wall.
A powder room counts too, as long as there is no shower or tub in it. One maker says grasscloth is fine in a powder room like that, provided the wall was primed first.
Inside those rooms, an interior wall is the safest surface you can pick. A wall with a conditioned room on each side has the same air on both faces, so nothing is being driven through it.
The walls to leave alone
The first is the inside face of an exterior wall. The US Department of Energy classes vinyl wallpaper as a Class I vapor retarder and tells you to keep low perm materials off the inside of that wall. In a warm humid climate the moisture drive runs from outside toward the cool inside, and it condenses there.
The same guidance says what comes next. The water cannot dry back into the house, so it builds up in the wall, ruins the insulation and brings mold. Building Science Corporation says vinyl wall coverings inside air conditioned assemblies have been linked with moldy buildings.
The second is a full bathroom with a shower or tub. Makers say not to hang grasscloth in one at all, and any paper in there depends on a fan that really clears the steam. The EPA tells every household to run that fan or open the window while you shower.
If a bathroom is already losing to moisture, paper is not the fix. The surfaces come first, in a bathroom remodel, and the fan is worth checking before anything goes on those walls.
Paper, vinyl and grasscloth do not behave alike
Vinyl is what people reach for in a damp room, because it wipes clean and shrugs off a splash. That same quality makes it wrong on an exterior wall, since it is the vapor retarder the Department of Energy is warning about. On an interior partition it is fine.
Plain paper sits between the two. It is not sealed the way a vinyl face is, and it is not raw fiber either, so it takes a water mark rather than shedding one.
Grasscloth is natural fiber and the fussiest of the lot. A maker recommends against a bathroom with a shower or tub because of the moisture it would meet daily, and warns that with no fan or vent, flying water marks it. It cannot take a household cleaner either, only clean water and a damp white cloth.
Whatever the face is made of, the swings matter more than the average. An adhesive maker notes that temperature and humidity moving up and down makes the paper shrink and expand, and that is what opens a seam months later.
What has to happen before a single strip goes up
The Wallcovering Installers Association starts with the dull repairs. Dents and nail holes get filled with spackling or patching compound and sanded smooth. Then the sanding dust comes off, along with any grease or stain.
Stains get a stain killing primer over them. Anything that has had mold on it gets treated with a mold remediation solution before a primer goes near it. In this climate that step is not the one to skip.
Then the wall gets primed, and the association is specific about what with: a good quality acrylic primer made for wallpaper, not whatever is left in the garage.
Skip that primer and the paste soaks into the bare wall, and the paper and the wall become one thing. On day one it looks identical to a wall done properly. You find out years later, when somebody tries to take the paper off.
Give the room its conditions too. Adhesive makers ask for the material and the room to settle for 24 to 48 hours first, then to hold the room steady while the work happens.
Taking it down, and what it leaves
Removal starts by scoring the face so water can reach the paste. The installers' association warns that extra sideways pressure does undue damage to the wall surface, and says to let the scoring tool do the work.
Then water with a little dish detergent, sponged onto the backing and left to soak for at least ten minutes. The soak is the part everybody cuts short.
The glue is the actual job. Before anything is painted, every trace of paste behind the backing has to come off and the wall rinsed clean. Paste left on a wall reads straight through a new coat.
A primed wall lets the paper release and hands the wall back. An unprimed one hands you a torn surface to patch and sand. Either way, removal usually ends in interior painting rather than a finished wall.
One wall or the whole room
An accent wall is the low risk version, and not only because there is less of it. The wall behind a bed or a sofa is usually an interior partition, the wall type that gives the least trouble here.
A whole room means every wall has to pass the same test, and in most rooms at least one faces outside. That is the one to think hardest about, and it is often the wall with a window in it.
One wall is also easier to change your mind about. Rooms get redone more often than anyone plans for.
The call gets made standing in the room. Book a visit and we look at the walls with you. There are finished rooms on our projects page.
Can I put wallpaper in a bathroom?
In a powder room with no shower or tub, yes. In a full bathroom it depends on the paper and on how well the fan clears the steam. Makers say not to hang grasscloth in a bathroom with a shower or tub at all.
Does wallpaper cause mold?
Not on its own. Moisture with nowhere to go causes it. The Department of Energy warns against low perm finishes like vinyl wallpaper inside an exterior wall in a warm humid climate, because vapor condenses on them and the wall cannot dry inward.
Does the air conditioning have to stay on while the paper goes up?
Keep the room steady, yes. Adhesive makers ask for 60 to 80 degrees and 30 to 50 percent humidity, and want the material and the room settled a day or two first.
Can new paper go straight over the old paper?
No. The old paper comes off, the paste comes off, and the wall gets washed and primed. Anything less and your new paper is stuck to a layer that is already letting go.
How do I know if my walls were primed last time?
You usually find out during removal. If the paper releases and the wall stays intact, it was primed. If the surface tears, it was not, and the wall needs patching and sanding before anything new goes on.
Show us the wall.
Book a visit by form, phone or WhatsApp. We look at the room, the wall and the air in it before we say yes to a paper. We speak English and Spanish.