Zinnser Peelstop - not sure if suitable, any advice

[harrybr]

Hi All

Been lurking on this forum for a while now, found it really useful while doing up my house. Thanks to you guys I discovered zinnser BIN which has proven to be a great primer for preparing a old lead-painted surfaces for redecoration.

Here's my current problem. My house has a LOT of stairs, and I've realised they were painted with lead-based paint many years ago. That paint is sound, but someone in recent years painted over it with a water-based paint that didn't adhere properly, and can be scratched off with a fingernail (revealing the solid lead-based paint below). It's not massively flakey or peeling, It's just easy to scrape off.

I don't want to have to remove the water-based paint as the banister spindles have too much detail and I want to avoid getting lead dust/fumes in the air. I'd prefer to paint over.

Do you think Zinnser peelstop would do the job? Or zinnser BIN? I know it's lazy to try to lock-in flakey paint but in this situation it seems to make sense.

thanks in advance!

 

[CheshireDecorators]

Its more likely its oil based gloss you're scratching off, sounds like its been bumped in the past (no undercoat straight gloss). What I would do is get some fine wet and dry and give a quick sand to key then apply two coats of zinnser perma white, you can get semi gloss and eggshell. Its waterbased so will stay white and it even sticks to un-sanded services.

 

[harrybr]

Hi Cheshire Decorators,

I'm keen not to sand because of (a) lead paint beneath + small children living in the house; and (b) the banister spindles have a lot of ridges that will prove annoyingly time consuming.

The top layer of paint isn't flakey. It's soft and easy to scratch off with my finger nail. I'd love to be able to just coat it with something and forget about it, if such a magic solution exists...

thanks so much for taking the time to reply!