Painting over cigarette / nicotine / tar stains on a ceiling

antilles

Hi everyone

I've moved into a house where the previous occupants were heavy smokers. Painted the yellowed ceiling at the weekend, and the staining (which I think is probably tar from the cigarettes) has seeped straight through the emulsion. It's driving me nuts.

An option that's been suggested to me is to clean the ceiling using sugar soap to remove the staining, which sounds good in theory, but the staining is so bad that I suspect I won't be able to remove it all. I've also been told that a stain blocking primer would do the job, and have seen some very expensive products out there.

Would something like this do the job:

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Painting+Decorating/Primers+Undercoat/Trade+Primer+Undercoat+White+25Ltr/d150/sd3006/p79512

(It's an alkyd resin primer).

Or can someone recommend something that they've used successfully in the past? Preferably reasonably priced and quick to apply, as I'm on a tight budget.

tanith

To be honest I think smoke stains always come through and the SMELL! will never go away unless you use elbow grease and sugar soap to remove the film from all the surfaces before you think about painting it.

cyclonebri1

We moved into a house many years back where the walls were literally running in tar or nicotine or what ever it is. It was actually sagging in stripes down the wall.

Washed with sugar soap and used a decent emulsion and it was gone, doesn't help you but it worked for me.;);)

jcb208

No good washing now you have painted,cheapest option would be to use thinned OIL based undercoat,other then that a stain block such as Zinsser 123, or others

antilles

jcb208 wrote: »

No good washing now you have painted,cheapest option would be to use thinned OIL based undercoat,other then that a stain block such as Zinsser 123, or others

Yeah wish I'd known about that before I painted. I saw Zinsser 123 which looked rather expensive, so I'm having a look now for an oil based undercoat.

jcb208

Personaly that's what I would use oil based undercoat ,Zinsser is good and expensive but takes some covering over as its not that white.Make sure If yiou use undercoat allow to dry for 24 hrs before painting over

societys_child

antilles wrote: »

I saw Zinsser 123 which looked rather expensive

May be expensive . . . but it works

Ben84

We had the same thing years ago. We tried washing it off and it turned out it had soaked in to the paint/plaster and just kept returning. So, we used stain block, painted over, and that worked.