Nicotine stained paintwork and paper?

BargainJunky

What is the best way to cover this up?

Mom has just bought a bungalow and the previous owner must have been a chain smoker. Everything is a lovely shade of nicotine yellow! His relatives have tried to do a quick remedy with a pot of magnolia emulsion on the walls but that hasnt really worked.

Will a good rub down on the paintwork and then fresh paint/emulsion cover it all up?

djdido2

hi bargainjunkie.

sugar soap is fantastic for this. the only thing i use that will shift nicotine. its fairly cheap too.

hth

dido

lemontart

yep defo sugar soap - you will be amazed by it, also hire a carpet cleaner as that will freshen the place up as well,

Liz
xx

heatherw_01

I don't know what you can do now you have painted over it, but you usually use sugar soap to clean the walls down and then paint over.

Tustastic

As a former smoker, I agree with the advice about sugar soap for cleaning/preparation. Would also recommend 'Once' paint for covering up heavily nicotine-stained surfaces. More than Once if necessary. HTH:)

fitorbust

Having had this problem we found the only thing to cover it in the end was an oil based paint after a good clean with sugar soap.
Roll on the ban even though it wouldn't help with this!

andrewmoorcroft

sugar soap will work on non-porous surfaces where you can clean the tar off the surface but will not work on porous materials including walls painted in emulsion if its really bad. the problem is that the tar is like oil and penentrates very deep. if you paint it with emulsion the oil will seep back through and spoil the new paint. you need to paint on a none porous barrier that the oil cant pass through. oil/gloss undercoat paint can be used. It can also be used on ceilings and wall in kitchens where you get chip pan fat stains, slight damp patches and mould areas. Put in on will a roller, just like emulsion, then you can paint the walls with real emulsion without fear of seepage back through the undercoat. Many single coat and fast drying gloss paints are water based and should not be used as the barrier. i learnt this info by painting a wall in a kithchen with oil stains 6 times and the stain kept coming through and a painter tipped me off about the gloss coat barrier. even tho the gloss is oil based, it forms a sealed skin which doesnt allow the oil out.