Painting New Plaster

nickj_2

SeriouslyStressed wrote: »

Oh brilliant.. just found this thread

My sister needed to move into town from a village for various reasons and found a suitable house on a housing association list. They accepted her for it then told her it needed to be refitted etc. SIX WEEKS later ( major internal work, nearly every interior wall stripped out to brick/wood laths and re-plastered etc.. The HA employed builder has said it's an inch thick ) she was given the go ahead to sign for the house which after so long looking for one, plus the building work delay she was only too happy to sign for it.

Turns out though, that all those 6 weeks, the house has had no heating on, and that, plus the all new plaster walls and some ceilings, it was rather cold and damp. A delay in the gas people coming to turn the gas on meant another 5 days of no heating, and it was a rather damp cold atmosphere in there ( extra problem turns out the gas central heating thermostat is faulty so it's all or nothing heat wise at the moment )

Without being told otherwise, and being given just a week to give up her current house to move into the new one she has painted all the walls and ceilings mostly in matt emulsion, and kitchen in kitchen satin matt white. Of course with no heating on the walls where very awkward to paint, bleeding through and taking a day to dry each coat, and even after the heating had been on 3 days and 5 coats of paint later everywhere the house is so humid and damp it's like a Turkish sauna.

Having just read this thread, I see what's majorly wrong now... and the obvious question jumps to mind.. why on earth did the housing association say the house was ready to move into, when it clearly is'nt !!! ???

It's bare floorboards throughout and freshly skimmed concrete in the kitchen so hardly habitable to move three boys ( 18yrs, 16yrs with special needs and a 3yr old ) and her into.

Apart from what now looks like a disaster by having painted the still damp plaster walls ( HA never said don't or warn not to etc ) she's already hired a removal van for a week and paid for carpets to be fitted this monday 14th coming, and bought laminate flooring for the kitchen today.

Looks like the proverbial has hit the fan here.

Desperate for a solution I urged her to get a dehumidifier provided by HA, and they've given her a little DIY unit.
When it was switched on in a small upstairs bedroom ( 4m Long x2m wide x2.4m high ) we'd gotten just over a pint of water in an hour out of the air !!! Leaving it a further 4 hours got another 2 pints of water out of that room.

I'm shocked that HA could let anyone sign for a house that's clearly not fit to be decorated or moved into, and of course the clock is ticking on her existing house tenancy remaining as the next people allocated to it want to be moving in.

The builder today said give each room 24 hours with the dehumidifier in it.. but we just worked out... 3 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen a landing and a hall.. that's 7x24hrs and bang.. the van has to go back... so wasted hire costs of around £250 there. Others have said dont put your stuff in a damp house or it'll go musty and there's a danger of sorts when it comes to electrical items like TV's etc in such a damp house. The house is already far smaller than her existing one so she's having to throw lots out as it is just to move into it.

I'm going on way too much I know.. but what can be done? and who is at fault or legally accountable here?
What are the chances, having now painted the walls, that it might all have to come off again so the plaster can dry out properly?

My sister has asked for an extension to her 1 week remaining tenancy of the existing home to try and buy some time to put things right, but the HA are reluctant to allow this, and in any case if allowed the time extension say she will have to pay the extra weeks rent, plus the rent on the new home as she signed for it Thursday last week ( even though it turns out it's not ready to be moved into )

If this long long post is in the wrong place.. MODS please move it to the correct thread to gain maximum exposure to any helpful replies, thank you.

sorry to hear about your problems .
what i would do is if the heating is on , have it on low all the time until dehumidifier has stopped pulling moisture out of the air . , have the dehumidifier in the centre of the house .
as for who is legally responsible is a tricky one , if the house was unsuitable then i guess your sister should have said so at the start , then it would be down to the H/A to sort it out .

unfortunately if your sister has painted over wet plaster then that is probably her fault , all tins have instructions on them stating that all surfaces must be clean and dry , if your dehumidifier is pulling 1 pint per hour the walls must have been obviously still saturated , she may be lucky and the paint stays on - worst case scenario is that it will peel or blister off as it dries out .
if the floor has jsut been rescreeded then i would have thought it would need to dry out for several weeks before you put anything on it .

SeriouslyStressed

Hi Nick thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately, as the thermostat unit is faulty ( new control panel has been ordered ), the heating is either on FULL or NOT AT ALL, so it's impossible to set it on low, and it's still a time limited factor to all this fiasco.

I still think the HA person in charge of inspecting the work should not have told the HA housing officer it was ready when it clearly is'nt
( faulty heating system ( all or nothing ), plaster not dried out suitably for decorating etc )

My sister was shown the house very late on in the day on the previous Tuesday ( cold and dark outside ) and I suppose the coldness and dampness of the house was passed off due to the heating not being on etc as the humid 'Turkish Bath' atmosphere was not evident until after the gas was connected and the heating turned on.

I've read on here and elsewhere now that the kind of work that was done should have been dried out for a decent length of time before it would be habitable, and this has simply not been done. The HA contracted builder said himself the HA are just too quick to turn houses over so they can start getting an income again from them, and cutting corners re drying times etc.

The major problem my sister has now is that she's unclear whether it's ok to move furnashings and furnature into the house after it's carpeted monday due to the continued damp atmosphere.

Sis is'nt a builder or technically minded so when the HA officer said it was ok to sign for the house, she took their word for it and got on with decorating. At no point did they say not to decorate etc, so sister was none the wiser.

keletkezes

Hi guys, been loking for somewhere sensible to post about this and found this thread.

Just a simple question: the plasterers finished ~6weeks ago and I'm now going to paint the walls. Do I need to rub down, wipe clean etc. before mist coating? It's just the bottom 1m of the walls as we've just been damp-proofed: I don't need lecturing on the other ins and outs of this, I just want to know if I need to do any preparation between 'wait' and 'mist coat', and after 'mist coat' before 'paint' (except 'wait 'til dry', obviously!)

Thankyou

nickj_2

keletkezes wrote: »

Hi guys, been loking for somewhere sensible to post about this and found this thread.

Just a simple question: the plasterers finished ~6weeks ago and I'm now going to paint the walls. Do I need to rub down, wipe clean etc. before mist coating? It's just the bottom 1m of the walls as we've just been damp-proofed: I don't need lecturing on the other ins and outs of this, I just want to know if I need to do any preparation between 'wait' and 'mist coat', and after 'mist coat' before 'paint' (except 'wait 'til dry', obviously!)

Thankyou

it should be ok just to paint , but you can just give it a dust down and make sure there aren't any bits on it that need knocking off

decorate-it

Plaster drying out depends on a a variety of things, heat, ventilation, summer, winter and the surface its applied on, however a general rule is:
If brick or block-work it can range from 6 weeks to 6 months.
If on plasterboard skimmed it can take from 3 to 6 weeks

All decorators merchants carry contract emulsions that can be applied when the surface is touch dry, basically this is emulsion without vinyl that lets the wall breathe, plaster contains salts that are brought to the surface during the drying process, it will pass through the contract emulsion and can simply be wiped off until it ceases (sacking cloth is good for this) if you use vinyl emulsion or pva you are causing a barrier that will be pushed off by the salts,
PS this is not a special emulsion its basically a cheap high obliterating emulsion and available in many trade brands and colours..

Chuffer690

Hi everyone,
Here is a question for any decorator, ceiling was plastered 2 weeks ago to cover old artex, when dry it was painted with Leyland super leytex matt emulsion (specially for new plaster even if not dry!!), the walls were dark green so covered them with the same paint just to hide it, one coat.
Next day painted new light colour on walls, next day second coat, noticed that paint was air bubbling, it dried like that. all walls in that room now need sanding back & doing again, the walls in other rooms that did not have any plastering done have not done this !!!!! was it moisture from the plastering still in the air ?
I am confused so is client.

Cheers:(

ValHaller

Chuffer690 wrote: »

Hi everyone,
Here is a question for any decorator, ceiling was plastered 2 weeks ago to cover old artex, when dry it was painted with Leyland super leytex matt emulsion (specially for new plaster even if not dry!!), the walls were dark green so covered them with the same paint just to hide it, one coat.
Next day painted new light colour on walls, next day second coat, noticed that paint was air bubbling, it dried like that. all walls in that room now need sanding back & doing again, the walls in other rooms that did not have any plastering done have not done this !!!!! was it moisture from the plastering still in the air ?
I am confused so is client.

Cheers:(

Crosspost alert. OP has started a new thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4822095

- I suggest all answers to that thread