Removing emulsion paint from plastered drywall.

patman99

I have a problem with black mold in my flat. The correct way to treat it is to remove the paint, treat the mold and then apply damp sealer and then re-paint.

My problem is that I painted the walls with wipe-clean emulsion some time back.

Is there an easy way to remove this?.

I have tried using a wallpaper steam stripper to soften the paint, but it was next to useless.

My remaining options appear to be -

1. Sand the paint off (I can get my hands on loads of sandpaper for free).
2. Heat gun (I have one of these handy).
3. Some kind of shot-blaster/laser cleaner.
4. Chemical stripper (not the option I would consider as it would soak into the wall and prevent future painting).

Silver-Surfer_2

Why not just paint it with Zinsser Bin?

patman99

TBH I have tried cleaning the mold off and painting over the area with 2 coats of damp seal, but the mold comes back.

The advice I find when googling the issue is to remove the paint and treat at plaster level as the anti-mold soaks into the wall and deals with the problem permanently.

If Zinsser Bin does the job, then it will save me a whole lot of hassle. I will give it a go on a test wall and see how well it works.

Up until now, I had never heard of it so thank you.

Katgrit

As far as I know (and I could be wrong) black mold on walls is due to damp INSIDE the house, ie condensation in the air, rather than damp in the walls themselves. Unless you change the conditions inside the house, eg. better heating and circulation of air it'll keep coming back, regardless of how you (re)prepare your walls. Cleaning the black mold off with a bleach solution should be a good starting point. Houses nowadays aren't 'aired' as much as they were years ago when housewives would throw open the windows daily to get air flowing through a property.

patman99

We do tend to have the windows on night-lock most of the time to try to keep the air moving and we have a dehumidifier on the go 24/7, but it is like fighting a loosing battle.

My next step is to attempt to build a home-made MHVC system (which is apparently quite easy to do with the right materials).

phil24_7

Where is the moisture coming from? Try to stop or mitigate it at the source (if from a bathroom then upgrade the fan in that room) before taking other measures.