Paint not drying- Please help

[george0401]

Hi there and I hope someone can advise.

Just moved into new flat and have painted it this weekend.
The walls were lined by the previous owner and most of the paint has taken pretty well. However in the corners of one room the paint has not dried. I think it is because it is an outside wall on the other side and is therefore cold.

Can anyone please advise how I can get the paint to dry as i am getting it in the ear from my Girlfriend.

Any suggestions would be greatfully recieved

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

Well, I think you've diagnosed the problem correctly. The water in an emulsion paint needs to evaporate from that paint before it will form a film properly.

My advice would be to put a fan in the room and direct it at the wet corners. The warmer air inside most of the room will warm those cold corners and help in warming up the wet paint film on those cold surfaces.

Still, depending on how long the paint has been on, it still might not form a film properly. If you see any clowdy white discoloration in the paint once it's dry, or if the gloss isn't uniform but patchy, then the paint didn't form a proper film.

Also, believe it or not, a very significant factor in determining how quickly a paint will dry is it's color. The reason why is that the carrier fluid of the colourants in the paint tinting machine is glycerine. They use glycerine as the carrier fluid because it's equally soluble in both water and white spirits, so both oil based and emulsion paints can be tinted on the same tinting machine. Glycerine is much slower to evaporate than water even under the best of conditions. So the more they tint a paint to get it to the desired colour, the more glycerine they add, and the slower the paint will dry. (In fact, it used to be possible to ruin a gallon of emulsion paint by adding too much colourant when tinting it.) It's the glycerine that's added when tinting that results in many, if not most, of the slow drying problems people encounter when painting in the winter. And, of course, painting exterior walls in cold weather with a heavily pigmented color only exacerbates the problem.

Using a hair dryer to dry the paint would certainly work too, but a fan doesn't require your time and attention.

 

[george0401]

Thanks so much for your time. I will try the fan and fingers crossed

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

Crossing fingers also helps a lot.

Further, you should try to replace the air in the room periodically as the fan works. That is, periodically stop the fan and open the windows in the room to allow the warm humid air in the room to escape and the cold dry outdoor air to spill in through the windows to replace it. Then turn the fans on again. As that cold dry outdoor air warms up, it's relative humidity will go down, making it much better able to suck the water outta your paint.

 

[WoodYouLike]

Crossing fingers also helps a lot.

It's those little things that do the trick every time, not?

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

"It's those little things that do the trick every time, not?"

So true. It's the details that make the difference between a good job and shoddy job. Professional painters and decorators never cross their fingers or knock on wood to give their paint job the best chance of success.

 

[Zampa]

Allow the girlfriend some time off away from the kitchen sink, the ironing board and the washing machine....get her to do the decorating...then she cant moan!...simple.

 

[Gary_M]

Tell your girlfriend to stand in the corners and point her hairdryer at the 'non-drying' paint - should give you a few hours peace