If he left the backing on the wall, the new textured surface and subsequent finishes will only be as sound as the paper backing. If the paste is activated by the moisture in the mud, it will cause failures.

So, that's the way they do it in Florida?

Michael

Ask him if he also sells snake oil because I can tell you he is leaving you open for issues. We had to redo several of our upstairs rooms after Hurricane Katrina. One room had wallpaper on just 1 partial wall above a window seat. The other 2 rooms had wallpaper on all walls. I tried every method I knew to get the wallpaper completely off. Even my sheetrock guy tried helping but still some areas had the white backing left on the wall. He said he didn't know how much of an issue it would be but after he mudded it & textured the walls you can still see some spots where the texture looks different. It wasn't all that noticeable until we painted.
If he insists that's how it's done then I would ask him to give you a written guarantee that if there are any issues caused by leaving the backing on then he will redo it at no charge. If you are in doubt then you might try calling your local area homebuilder's association & ask them if that is an accepted practice in FL.

Thanks for your quick response. You're saying pretty much what I thought and why I'm concerned. However, I thought that maybe the contractor had a point regarding the walls where the wallpaper was installed right onto the drywall. Here, removing the rest of the wallpaper would also damage the drywall and probably remove some or all of the outer layer of the drywall. So, in this instance, does he method make sense?

No, his method does not make sense.
What would have made sense was to correctly prime the drywall before applying wallpaper.
Now you are left with a mess. Removing wallpaper from unprimed drywall often damages the cardboard face of the drywall. It is typically then skim coated. Primed, and then testured (if you really want).

Thanks so much. Gardz seems like a great product. I've purchased it and instructed the contractor to use it.
I'm still not sure, however, what to do about the one wall where he already put the drywall mud over the thin layer of wallpaper (about 2 days ago). I examined it, and found no bubbles. he put a textured finish on, and there are gaps, intentional, where one can see the layer of wallpaper. I hate to go through the whole trouble of removing this layer of mud (also, he says he can't do it (obviously he doesn't want to)). I'm thinking that maybe I could just put on a coating of the gardz. Any thoughts?

I'm panicking. Just removed some heinous wallpaper and not only did we rip off the sheetrock paper, we also found a completely rusted out corner and disintegrating drywall right next to the shower. We just bought this house and have very little money for repairs. Doesn't seem like we have a lot of options beyond having someone resheetrock, does it? I'm a little afraid of what else they might find.

"We just bought this house and have very little money for repairs. "

Buy a stainless drywall pan, a 6 inch knife, and a bag of easysand 90 and learn how to fix it yourself.
It is not hard, and for the cost of the few tools and the materials you can rip the job out and do it over until you like the result.

Thank you for the vote of confidence. We had a contractor look at it, who said we needed to remodel the whole bathroom for an estimate of $20,000. Needless to say, we like your advice better. Summer vacation starts tomorrow, and the learning is just beginning. Thanks!

"We had a contractor look at it, who said we needed to remodel the whole bathroom for an estimate of $20,000."

Fishing for work.
Many drywall finishers do not actually know hot to use setting compound (Easysand or Durabond) and so a minor repair takes multiple 1 hour visits spread over 2-3 days.
Easysand90 hardens in about 90 minutes, and you can apply another layer as soon as the previous one is hard (it does not need to be dry, just hard).
If you get good you can switch to Easysand20 and put a coat on about every hour.
More thin coats are better. It may look bad after the first coat, bot knock off any rough spots with the drywall knife (like a scraper), and apply another coat. After about the third coat it will start to look very good.

Okay, we're patched and ready to tackle the walls. There seems to be some disagreement in the e-mail threads about whether to GARDZ or skim coat the walls first? Also, how important is it to get all of the residual wallpaper glue off of the walls? It's a bear.

If you are going to use Easysand or Durabond, do you need to sand between coats and after the last coat? I had someone put up new drywall on one wall. He then put on one or more coats of drywall compound (I don't know what he used), completing the entire job within about 3 or 4 hrs. Seams are visable, and the area over the seams bulges outward. What should be done about this?

If you are good at taping you should not need to sand at all.
Durabond is very hard and difficult to sand, thus the introduction of Easysand.
If the wall is not smooth about the only thing to do is sand it down.
Sometimes you can use a taping knife as a scraper and remove minor blemishes, but yours sound more like a poor job that will need sanding.