Paint looks different where cracks were filled in

Hi,

I've got some insurance contractors in doing up part of the house. There were some cracks in some of the walls, and they carved them out and filled them in. They have now painted over them. The areas where they filled in are visibly different to the main areas of the wall (at least, if you are looking under certain lights). To clarify, the paint across most the wall has a slight texture to it (not a deliberate thing, but just a slight stippling effect where the paint dried), however, over the areas that were filled the paint is totally flat.

I've had a read around, and I get the impression this might be because they didn't put primer on top of the filler. Could that have caused this? Would it have solved it?

Am I just being fussy, and should I just accept that after patching up cracks the wall will look imperfect unless it is skimmed?

If there is a way to fix it, now that it has already been painted, I would be happy to hear this.

Thanks

The filler should be primed. You probably have a mixture of flashing because it wasn't primed, and the smooth finish of the filler not matching the texture of the wall which has built up over years of painting or the wrong sleeve being used. Had they rubbed the walls down this would have alleviated the problem and is also the only way to solve it.

Thanks for your reply dcdec.

When you say "rub the walls down" do you mean, sanding the entire wall?

Would it work if I now sanded down over the filled areas, and put primer onto it, and repainted?

sanding the filled area would make it worse as it would be smoother, whole wall needs sanding and painting, unless it will touch up by running a mini roller over the areas that are showing up, only decent paints allow you to do this though.

Andorin said:

just a slight stippling effect where the paint dried),

Click to expand...

that's just numerous layers of previous paint applied with a roller.

If you want to replicate it, a coarse roller and thick paint will do it. You have to apply fairly lightly. Sometimes using the edge of a hairy roller will do it, or you might dab it with a small brush to stipple it. Budget paints tend to be quite thin and will not do the job.

Once you have got a reasonable texture, and it is thoroughly dry, you will probably need to roller the whole wall as the new paint might not blend in.

Probably nobody but you will ever notice it

If they used tetrion to fill that flashes really bad on emulsion

Hi. I have a similar problem. I removed some fitted furniture from our bedroom and the wall behind where it was fitted is very smooth, compared to the other exposed areas. I have now repainted all of the room walls with very good quality paint and a fairly thick roller but the difference between the smooth areas and the more textured areas has remained noticably different as have any small areas that i filled in.

I know some of you have said that it can be build up of years of paint but I dont think this is, as to the best of my knowledge the walls have only been painted twice.

Apparently about five years ago the previous owner had all of the walls repainted (they are all just plain plastered walls) and it looks to me like the painter has used either a very thick type of paint or a very heavy roller. I have attached a picture trying to show the texture.

So that I can match the walls in the rest of the house as I gradually redecorate it all, what type of paint and thickness of roller would you recommend?