Wall paint disaster

[madrat]

We have just taken possession of our 'new' house which is definitely a renovators delight!!
We have found that on a double brick house the internal wall paint has been applied (one coat) without undercoat or sealant prior to painting.
On top of that, the previous owner of the house has put kiddie stickers all over one of the bedroom walls. When these stickers were removed, it peeled the paint off with them.
Can anyone advise on how to go about prepping this wall for painting properly?
Some of the other rooms have the 'bubbled effect' where the paint is starting to peel too (not as bad as the bedroom), however, the time and cost of stripping every room in the house really doesn't appeal to me.
Any suggestions???
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[rmartens]

Is the wall plastered or painted on bricks?
If it is plastered I guess sanding with a pad will be a way to go but maybe your local paint store can help you just ask them.

[madrat]

The wall was plastered.
We have tried filling and sanding, but once we get one area done, we are finding that the paint is actually 'bubbling' away from the wall in patches. From that, we are bound to have to strip all the walls effected (5 x rooms at least!!)
We were just living in hope that there may be some 'miraculous cure' to slack work done in the first place.....

[frog_hopper]

If the paint is bubbling, you may have damp problems? Do you have a damp course?

[munruben]

Don't know how you removed the stickers but I use to heat them with a hair dryer and they peeled off white easy once the glue softened. I know that doesn't solve your problem but might be a handy tip to others in the same situation.

[madrat]

Thanks for your responses

We had a complete building inspection done and no signs of damp (thank goodness).

Some of the stickers had already been ripped off before we took possession and I really don't think they were meant for the walls in the first place. Couple that with a bodgy paint job to begin with, spells disaster.

Even where there were no stickers has some bubble patches (dammit).

We have definitely inherited someone else's bodgy work, but then again that's supposed to be the 'fun' (and i use that word lightly) of renovations.

Can someone let me know when the 'fun' begins??

[celeste]

Hi madrat

how old is the house?

I am reno'ing one at the mo 1970's built.

I am finding that the plaster has not been sealed B4 painting and when I removed power points etc. that the paint just peels off like a plastic coating. Is this what you have?

As pulling it all off would be a night mare and I gather that the stuff has been there 30yrs so it not going to fall off etc.

What I am doing is, in the areas that it is peeling I am pulling off the peeling bits, until I find a fairly stable bit and then using final finish plaster to tidy it up. This should also, seal the edges of the old paint. Then re painting.

In one room I had done this and then the 1st coat of paint all fine. When I did the 2nd coat I had a bubble come up about the size of a bread and butter plate. I went O! oh! Well I left it a while, whilst the paint dried and guess what it disappeared and you can not even tell where it was. who knows???

Anyway I notice you are in Perth, if you want to pop around to the reno, I can show you what I am doing re the paint or where are you maybe I can pop around and have a look?. You might be able to get away with doing what I am doing.

Celeste

[madrat]

Hi Celeste,

Thanks so much for your input. What you had, sounds exactly what we are dealing with at the moment!! Definitely looks like 'plastic paint'.

However, would you believe the house is only 6.5yrs old??

I was doing what you did with peeling off the blistered paint, put a light coat of fill over the affected areas and then lightly sanding, but because I really didn't know if that would be the right way to go about it, we decided to seek further help.

We ended up speaking to one of the reps for Dulux Paints. He has pretty much told us to do what we were doing (same as yourself), but gave us a really thin filler (like a skin coating) and then sand to smooth.

Unfortunately, it looks like the previous owners were more into a 'quick fix' as this is now the third problem we have come across with renovating this house .

Thanks for the offer to visit your place to have a look though.

We spent all weekend sanding back 90sqm of concrete flooring after ripping up tiles, so the paint issue is back on the list to tackle next. We'll see how we go.

Really appreciate your response.

cheers

[MrFixIt]

Hi

The wall was plastered.
We have tried filling and sanding, but once we get one area done, we are finding that the paint is actually 'bubbling' away from the wall in patches. From that, we are bound to have to strip all the walls effected (5 x rooms at least!!)
We were just living in hope that there may be some 'miraculous cure' to slack work done in the first place.....

It's a big job, BUT the ONLY way you will know and be satisfied with the result is to bite the bullet and do it right the first time by stripping ALL the walls.

You have my sympathy. I just endured something similar when painting our master bedroom. This bedroom had been painted at least three times. This time I had to patch some holes where I had removed two wall lights.

I noticed that the paint there was peeling back like a layer of thin plastic. Hmmm?

I pulled on this to peel it back, as part of the preparation for the new finish.

Ha! This piece came off in one "sheet" about 150mm wide and 300mm long

On inspection I discovered that the wall was never properly sealed, the piece that peeled off came away from the PLASTER, it was ALL the layers of paint in one sheet. Therefore the whole wall (and the others) had to be stripped.

I stood on one side of the room and walked to the other side with my scraper against the wall and one huge strip the width of the scraper just peeled away.

The room turned out nice when completed.

A weekend painting job while SWMBO was away turned into a whole week job

In your case you may need to use a paint stripper to remove all the paint. If you find bibbles in one spot, it may be just a matter of time before they appear elsewhere on the wall. If you don't fix the problem at first, you might find yourself buying MORE paint to recover the wall you need to strip later (after you have already painted).

BTW. If you DO end up stripping the paint off the plaster, round off the corners of your scraper to help prevent the scraper from digging in to the plaster.

Good luck with your task.

[madrat]

Hi Peter,

Your photos and description is exactly what we are facing!

Why do people have to be so bodgy??

Thanks so much for your advice, as we want to do this right the first time.

I think stripping all the walls is the best way to go in the long run, but the stupidity and laziness of people absolutely amaze me!

I guess I know what we will be doing this weekend!
Your input is greatly appreciated. Cheers!!

[echnidna]

Why do people have to be so bodgy??

Because they watch bodgy TV reno programs that shows them how to do bodgy jobs but they're not told that the methods are bodgy.

How to become a tradesman in 30 minutes - watch xxxx program tonight.

[madrat]

Bob, you are spot on!!

These programs should be outlawed!

We starting stripping walls last night. Big bloody, time consuming and messy job, but definitely convinced it is the best way to go!

We may get our first coat of paint on in 2009!!!!

[bob w]

Because they watch bodgy TV reno programs that shows them how to do bodgy jobs but they're not told that the methods are bodgy.

How to become a tradesman in 30 minutes - watch xxxx program tonight.

Unfortunately some "so called tradesmen" have been watching the same shows. Our daughter has just had a house built and the "painters" put two coats of acrylic straight over the plasterboard and when questioned on this practice stated that was what plastic paint was designed for. The builder also said it was OK and that was what all painting contractors did these days.

[Jacksin]

Unfortunately its not only dodgy subbies.

Recently I did some work for a bloke changing some doors around and wondered why the paint was flaking off so easily. He had been told by Bunnings that acrylic paint would be OK applied directly to his doors previously coated in oil based enamel.

Needless to say he now has a nice collection of peeling/flaking doors

[madrat]

Hi Bob and Jacksin,

The more and more I speak to people like yourselves and get more of an insight as to what their experiences are, the more I'm starting to wonder whether anyone nowadays knows the meaning of the word 'professional'!!!

And you are both right in saying that the tradies and specialised sales people (and i use that term loosely) are at fault also.

We now have no idea whether it was the tradies or the owners that have created this monster, but whoever is to blame needs to give themselves a hundred upper cuts for being so 'stupid'!

Even only yesterday, I was speaking to a complete stranger about renovating and she informed me that they 'just painted their new plastered walls with paint, no sealer used'.

My response....?? 'Bloody idiot, you'll be sorry'. Don't think she appreciated my reaction, especially when i explained what we are going through with our paint problem.

We have stripped all the walls that we could and they have now been replastered $$$$$ (thankyou previous owner!!) and BINDER SEALED (the magical words).

The walls that were not as badly damaged, have been sanded, skim coated, sanded, binder sealed, sanded small blisters, skim coated affected areas, sanded, binder sealed, undercoated, and whoalla!! we may have had a win!!

This fix up so far, has put us 3 weeks behind and we consider ourselves lucky as the plasterer was very understanding of our dilemma and helped us out immensely by turning up to do the work on a weekend!!! AND did a brilliant job. Most tradies would have taken advantage of that and charge an arm and a leg, but i must say, he was a 'house angel' in disguise!!! I guess it helped that he had been faced with the same problem with a house he bought a year ago.

Anyway, we will continue with 'repairing the walls' to the rest of the house as at this stage we have only got through 3 rooms so far with the time it has taken to repair them.

Thank goodness my husband works like a trojan and can't keep still for long. We have had some very disheartening moments with this house, but we have both pushed each other ahead...(more because we can't sleep in the garage for much longer...).

How to test a marriage....renovate!

Thanks for your input guys..still interested to hear more.