We recently bought a new home and wanted to paint all the bedrooms prior to moving in. We washed the walls, mudded and sanded any holes, and used a primer. The primer we used for these rooms was leftover primer we had used a few years ago, but had had no issues with it previously.

Our first problems came about when we had done 2 coats of paint and it still wasn't showing good coverage. After a third coat though, it looked good. My husband, however, did not wait the suggested 4-6 hours between coats. Love the man, but he does not have the patience for things like this. And I'm pregnant so was reducing my time doing the painting jobs.

Fast forward a week as we moved in our furniture and suddenly the paint was scratching off like nothing. One room has about an 8 inch circumference of a spot that has peeled off, and we have NO idea how that happened. There was nothing moved into that room, and unless my brother's girlfriends toes did it in her sleep, we literally have no idea. Three weeks later (today) , I put some painters tape on the wall of one room to paint a stripe. As I was readjusting the tape, a 4 inch strip of paint came off with it! I'm so frustrated that we spend an entire weekend and this is happening.

What do you think is causing the problem? I'm partial to thinking the primer was off and that combined with not waiting proper times between coats created walls that are now looking worse than they did before. In the bathrooms, we used a newer stain blocking primer and we are not seeing this issue there at all. Can we just reprime with a better primer and then paint again? And if so, should we do it now or wait longer? Or do we need to scrape the previous paint off first? I'm not looking forward to that if that's the case.

 

Welcome to the forums Sarah!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it sure sounds like you need to scrape off the paint Any coating that isn't adhered now won't adhere better later and there is no coating that can magically make it stick.

Tell us more about the primer. What brand was it? latex or solvent based? How did it look and smell when the can was opened up? How/where was it stored? The odds are that the primer was bad. While it's not a great idea to cut short the time between coats - that doesn't normally result in peeling paint. Also how did you wash the walls? did you rinse? Soap residue can also cause adhesion issues.

 

Could it be that those walls are comprised of "calcimite" ?

I once owned a Massachuetts house built in 1943 with calcimite walls and ceilings, which required a special calcoater primer in order to get anything to stick.

Nearly drove my Wife nuts !

 

Oh that makes me want to cry hearing that.

It was Sico brand primer from Rona, and the paint is also Rona brand, but their children's room voc free paint. We used the same paint for our bathrooms with a new can of Kilz primer and have had no problems in those rooms. The primer is a latex primer, but is not a stain blocker. It says it's usable on previously painted surfaces, new drywall, and is good for covering over dark colours. I didn't see it when my husband primed, but he says it looked and smelled okay. Nothing that made him think it was off or anything. It had been stored at our old place in our laundry closet above the washer and dryer. We used to store paint outside in our storage unit, but had issues with paint freezing. I don't think this can had been in there as I'm fairly certain we had thrown all that stuff out.

 

Oh, yes we washed the walls the night before painting. But just with hot water and vinegar solution.

I've never heard that before about the walls but this is a 1970 home and the other rooms have been fine. I just did the kitchen with the same paint last Friday (and without primer even) and it literally feels more cured than those rooms already.

 

I'm not familiar with that primer. Latex primer/paint that has frozen won't adhere well but it is real thick after it's froze and would really need to be thinned some before you could apply it. It's probably been 40 yrs since I've painted any calcimite walls, I think we used an oil base primer. Another possibility is the walls having been previously painted with an oil base enamel. Latex won't adhere long term over oil enamel unless it's sanded and a solvent based primer is applied first. The odds a=of either of those are slim. The only other cause I can think of is if there was a contaminate on the walls; wax/polish, soap residue or something else.

Unfortunately the fix is the same no matter the cause. All loose paint needs to be scraped off! Once you get that done we can figure out what the best plan is to keep it from happening again.

 

I just went and looked at the primer can and it said it was good for alkyd surfaces as well, so I must be wrong about it being latex.

Now when you say scrape off... Do you mean actually scrape off every bit of paint? Or scrape around the loose bits until it doesn't scrape off anymore?

 

Some latex primers claim they will bond to oil base enamel but I don't have much confidence in them. Being an old school painter I always use a solvent based primer when switching to latex over oil enamel.

You don't need to scrape off all the paint - just what's loose. I'd use a 5"or 6" drywall knife and scrape off what I could. 80 grit sandpaper may also come in handy. Once all the loose is removed you can soften up the ridges where some of the paint stuck with joint compound, sand it lightly, remove dust, prime and paint.

Once you get the loose removed let us know. We can help you figure out what the underlying paint is and hopefully the cause of the failure. We'll then know the correct procedure to get a lasting paint job.

 

Thank you. We'll work on that this week.