Paint gone off??

[DiscoTim]

Evening All

Had my house redecorated a couple of months ago. All seems fine except the chap who did it used some sort of special (lime?) primer on one of the walls in the back bedroom, as it has previously been painted in a dark purple colour (not by me!) and no matter how many coats of cream emulsion went on it still bled through.

The wall in question let off a pretty strong odour for a few weeks after. Now, when I run the ensuite bath or shower, the steam filtering into the bedroom seems to set of this strong, stale, musty pong all over again.

Any ideas? Is it just a case of applying a few more coats of emulsion or has this 'special' primer actually 'go off'?

The bloke who carried out the work has taken a job abroad for a few months, so I can't contact him to ask!

 

[malshep]

Sounds like the old Crown emulsion problem:

http://www.diydoctor.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=843

Was it Crown?

 

[DiscoTim]

No idea what the 'special' primer was but the emulsion was from Focus. The rest of the house is fine, just this sodding wall in the bedroom.

The only thing I remember about the special primer was the tim looked rather old.

Not sure what to do now; multiple coats of emulsion in the hope it covers the bad stuff or some or other paint before to seal it in!

 

[malshep]

Well if it really is the moisture from your shower permeating the emulsion right down to the primer, then I would have thought the only way forward is to try to provide a moisture resistant layer.

My choice would be good old fashioned solvent-based undercoat. Plenty of decorators (including me) would have used that to seal in the purple colour in the first place. Without buying anything specially for the job you could also try solvent-based primer or alcolhol-based sealant (Zinsser BIN)

The problem, of course, is that whatever paint you use to act as a moisture-proof layer, you're going to need at least 2 coats of your emulsion on top of that.

 

[DiscoTim]

Thanks for your sound advice. It's really appreciated

I'll get onto it next week.

Glad to hear the problem's not unique!

 

[malshep]

Might be an idea not to use the shower in the en-suite for 24 hrs before doing the undercoat, so the wall's as dry as possible.

 

[opps]

You can have tint added to the BIN, negating the need for emulsion over the top.

It will cost more than emulsion but it will be scrubable. BIN smells of alcohol but the smell will go in an hour or so and recoat times are much shorter than emulsion.

it's a great product