To use undercoat or not?

movilogo

I have stripped the wallpapers. In some walls, there are very fine hairline cracks.

Should I just paint 2 coats of emulsion (magnolia) on them or need to apply undercoat/primer first?

I see that undercoat is very expensive!

Also, I am not a fan of lining papers either.

suisidevw

Don't undercoat, just do two coats! Obviously after stripping, sand the walls/clean the walls and fill if the holes are larger than hairline before painting.

Ruski

Undercoat/primer isn't for use on walls

HTH


Russ

onomatopoeia99

Undercoat is generally for wordwork if you are going to put gloss on top. It's not for emulsion on plaster!

getmore4less

Wall prep is essential.

Super clean and as flat as possible,

Fill the cracks or they will come back with just a couple of coats of emulsion.

also look at filling any dints as they will show in certain lights(you get shadows and they don't look good).

depending on the state of the surface and the paint you plan to use a coat of light cheaper emulsion as a base to get much more even top coat.

princeofpounds

Use filler on the cracks. I find that flexible fillers work better as these cracks often expand and contract slightly with heat and moisture.

Babbawah

Consider a very heavily embossed anaglypta type wallpaper to hide the cracks.

If you want smooth walls then either spend the next decade filling and sanding them or spend approx £350k on re-plastering.

movilogo

Is it OK to use a less expensive (e.g. Crown) paint as first coat and more expensive (e.g. Dulux) as second coat?

Or both coats have to be of same paint?

sniggings

movilogo wrote: »

Is it OK to use a less expensive (e.g. Crown) paint as first coat and more expensive (e.g. Dulux) as second coat?

Or both coats have to be of same paint?

doesn't matter, imo not much difference between Crown and Dulux, apart from Crown is a lot cheaper.

arbrighton

We've had good results with coverage etc on new plaster with Leyland trade. Much cheaper than either of those

paddyrg

Babbawah wrote: »

...or spend approx £350k on re-plastering.

Blimey! :eek: