Mist coat actually neceassary?

[grayham]

Hi there, we've fairly recently moved into a house, and stripped the wallpaper off, along with a fair bit of plaster. We had the whole place replastered (to varying depths, but mostly just skimmed), which finished about 4 weeks ago. Our original intention was to do all of the decorating ourselves, but have come to the conclusion that with the limited time we have available, it'll take us ages if we do, so we're considering getting a professional in.

I've already done a bit of research on the correct methods (here and more generally), and concluded that a mist coat followed by a couple of coats of colour is probably the right way to proceed. We've had two guys come round to quote for doing the work, one of whom said that he would do a mist coat plus two, but the other guy said that mist coats were pointless - with decent paint you can just wang two coats of the colour on to the dried plaster. So... is that a commonly-held opinion, and not necessarily wrong, or just a sign of someone who likes to cut corners? He's been in the trade for 20 years, so presumably has more than half an idea of what he's doing!?

Cheers.

 

[Richard C]

If you don’t apply a mist coat (which is basically matt emulsion with more water in it) to bare, new plaster it will suck all the moisture straight out of the paint giving it no chance to stick properly. The paint will then either bubble & fall off of its own accord or, even if it stays put initially, will almost certainly come off if wall paper is used in the future.

 

[Chrispy61]

you could water down vinyl matt 5-10% cold water and that would prime the walls, but even then it would probly need two top coats!!

 

[Thewaltons]

i used to work with a painting company from when i left school and they never ever used to mist coat from this forum is the first time i have heard of a mist coat but i do belive what most of the painters do say i here so i think the company i was with was telling me wrong. What im trying to say is from all the places we have done with new plaster they have never had a problem from not mist coating the plaster.

 

[Chud]

Well having just done about half our house in one go we found the following using Dulux trade supermatt

Mistcoat - 4:3 paint to water
follwed by a single coat of 4:1 Paint to water has covered the plaster perfectly.

My only regret is not discovering trade paint earlier!

 

[Chrispy61]

Can i ask, What is trade super matt? And how much you pay for 10l?

 

[Zampa]

i used to work with a painting company from when i left school and they never ever used to mist coat

Then they were toshers..

''Mist and two'' is the industry standard..the first guy was right, the second either had a lot of work on and not much time to do it, doesnt know what hes talking about, is a poor business man talking himself out of extra work or a combination of all three!

Amist coat is vital, not only for the success of the paint sticking but the spreadablility and final texture.

Supermatt is dulux' trade non vinyl emulsion 10 litres should set you back about 20 quid.

However, if the walls just have a skim on them they will be nice and dry anyway...so you could use vinyl matt instead as the finishing coats..and use the supermatt for the mist,

Thin the supermatt by about 30%, roll it on, leave to dry and do any filling you may find, sand the whole wall give it one coat of vinyl matt thinned by about 25% and a final one thinned by about 155..(depending on the brans of paint some is 'dryer' than others and requires more thinning.)

If you dont thin it enough youll end up with a lot of 'orange' peel' from the roller.[/quote]

 

[Chrispy61]

super matt is just contract emulsion then, is it the same as johnstones johnmatt?

 

[Zampa]

Yeeeeeeeeeee---ep