Valspar B & Q cat urine paint smell/odour fiasco!

sazmatazz

Hi everyone,


I'm looking for others who have experienced the now widely reported issue with Valspar paint (purchased in B & Q) due to the removal of a preservative that has caused bacteria growth and a bad "cat pee" type smell in the rooms painted.


In July 2015 we purchased our first house, a full renovation project. The house required gutting and a lot of work to get to the stage of redecoration. We decorated our kitchen, living room and one of the bedrooms in mid 2016 in order to try and maintain some sort of normal life amongst full-on renovation chaos. (As first time buyers we have had to save and do our renovation bit by bit.)


Unfortunately, the rooms we have decorated so far have now fallen victim to the issue with Valspar paint developing a strong "aroma". This has been reported nationally on the news following numerous complaints. (I spent months cleaning carpets, upholstery, curtains and even external walls convinced the smell was cat urine, we don't have a cat)
After many months of pretty poor customer service and communication from Valspar, we have finally convinced them that their initial random offer of "compensation" is not acceptable, and honestly barely covers the cost of the paint itself. We have now had a more reasonable offer, which is a little over the amount on redecoration quotes we have been given by local companies and sent to Valspar.


As we've lived with this odour problem for a number of years now, should we expect Valspar to actually compensate us for this, on top of the cost of redecoration itself?


I'd be interested to know what experiences other people have had, as I am getting to the end of my tether.


Thank you

Furts

A product should be fit for purpose, so you have redress. But in some ways you also made a mistake, and have to accept a responsibility here. You chose Valspar paint and here you need to ponder this.



I cannot quote chapter and verse - life is too short and I do not have the facts. The gist is B&Q introduced Valspar, or suddenlly seemed to start pushing the sales. I had a Tradepoint card and countered this pushing. Reputable paint with generations of back up was available, namely Leyland. But also B&Q own brand called Fortress was available and excellent. So why go with the cheapskate, or new kid on the block? Even today there is little Valspar available through Tradepoint - which suggests there is something wrong somewhere.


In your case you had Crown, Dulux and Johnstones/Leyland - all reputable products - on the shelf but you made a conscious decision to avoid these.

Did you do due diligence? Clearly you made a bad choice, but this was your choice. It is easy to say I want "compo" but sometimes in life one has to accept a lesson can be learnt and you then put matters down to experience.

sazmatazz

A bad choice? No. A choice, yes - it's a fault with the product itself that the company has acknowledged & now corrected their change to the formula. Hence they are paying customers redecoration costs. Emulsion is not fit for purpose if it grows bacteria on your walls and has a strong, extremely unpleasant smell that is getting worse over time and accelerates in warm weather/when windows are opened.
The paint was used and applied correctly, the odour problem is entirely the fault of Valspar and they have admitted liability for that..
I'm not sure what lesson I am supposed to be learning here when there is nothing I personally could have done differently to change the outcome. You are mistaken when stating that Valspar is "cheapskate" - I purchased their premium paint formula because prior to the odour issue coming to light, it had an excellent reputation for good coverage, strong colour and durability and used it appropriately.. It cost far more than the equivalent dulux product, so it wasn't a cheapskate decision and it was taken at a time of paying out a lot of money on our house, so wasn't taken lightly. As explained above, we are not tradespeople, we have decorated before on a smaller scale however this is a large project. The decision was made with the best information available and there was no way of knowing about the odour issue at that time. Odour issue aside, the paint went on very well and has held up well - I have since used other types of paint elsewhere & it is comparable to those although Little Greene has come out on top so far.
It took 2 people 3 days to prep paint one of the rooms mentioned above, all in all we both took approx a week annual leave to do the decorating of the rooms. I have also spent a lot of time cleaning carpets, upholstery, wooden floors, walls, trying to find the source of the smell. And we've had to live with an extremely strong bad smell in 3 newly plastered and decorated rooms for between 2 and 3 years.

It seems you haven't experienced this yourself and I'm still not sure what lesson I am supposed to have learned from unknowingly buying a faulty product..
I'd appreciate any insights from people who have had a similar experience with the same type of paint..

Furts

You are missing the point here. There are well established, reputable paints on the market. These are backed up with product support. You chose to buy a brand that was being pushed by B&Q who in themself are no beacon for any concept of quality - they are retail DIY shed.


You could have gone to any accepted brand, or any Trade counter, or any Trade depot. Instead you chose B&Q.


I cannot comment on Valspar because I have never purchased it. That is my point - B&Q would have liked me, and thousands of others to do so. I have always declined, and I suspect thousands of others made the same decision.


Unfortunately you made the wrong decision. Yes the product should be fit for purpose, but buying Valspar was a risky decision. However Valapar are being honourable and they are compensating you for their poor product.


Strike an analogy with cars. You had plenty of Lexus on the shelfs, but instead you chose the Renault. You may have paid more for the Renault but that was your decision. The Renault started failing within a short time, no surprise there, but the Lexus are fault free. Of course you could then become a keyboard warrior over the Renault, but the common sense approach would be to not pick the Renault in the first place.


The lesson in life to be learnt from this sorry saga is to be an informed, savvy consumer. Next time I am guessing you will avoid Valspar - so lesson learned.

sazmatazz

My research went beyond b & q, which was my point.. I did not blindly purchase Valspar paint..I would not have done that, particularly as it isn't actually cheap as you first stated. So therefore I feel secure in the fact that I did the research that was possible before purchasing.
Correct, I would not buy from them again, although that is largely due to their customer service being absolutely terrible and the time they have taken to acknowledge their mistake. Unfortunately it's not as simple as just painting over it because of the nature of the problem, so it is a timely and expensive job to fix it, more inconvenience due to being sold a product that isn't actually fit for purpose. However I'd prefer to discuss it with someone who has bought and used the paint, which was my reason for creating this post.

sazmatazz

(just to add - Valspar aren't particularly honorable seeing as I've pressured them for approximately a year to get to the point of covering the basic costs of redecoration when the problem is entirely due to their error)

Furts

My view is getting Valspar to pay for redecoration is a brilliant result, and also an unusual result. Pushing for more is a risky scenario, but this could be another lesson in life.

sazmatazz

The point of this thread was to discuss the matter with people who have purchased and used the problem paint, to find out more about their experiences dealing with Valspar. Unfortunately all I've had so far is the same person saying the same thing repeatedly, who has never purchased or used Valspar paint, or the problematic batch of paint - trying to express the valuable lessons I should learn from buying a faulty product as if I was born yesterday. We have established I will not be buying Valspar paint again. I knew that before I was informed about the importance of learning my lesson.
I can understand why people who have been decorating longer than the 32years I've been alive may not have purchased Valspar. However, there was no reasonable way for me to have prior knowledge about the fault with the paint. The paint we purchased was one of the first faulty batches. Batches before that were fine and so the problem had not been flagged. Had Valspar not made an error with their formula, this problem would not have occurred. The rooms would not smell and would not need treating or redecoration within 3yrs of being painted.
The particular product I purchased is faulty. Of course I am aware getting them to agree to redecoration costs is positive, however I really would like to discuss the matter with other people who have actually experienced this problem, as I stated in my initial post. Hopefully, if there are other people who purchased the paint, me sharing this information could help them to also get their redecoration costs covered, if they haven't managed to do so - Valspar have been extremely evasive and reluctant to agree, basically refusing until pushed. Not courteous and apologetic.
They are a problem company, I'd love to discuss with others who have had problems with them.

ewanmalone

I cannot comment on Valspar because I have never purchased it

yet here you are commenting on this and adding nothing helpful. This is a tread asking for other peoples experiance who are in this situation, you have nothing to offer here so please leave this for people who can be helpful

sazmatazz

Furts wrote: »

My view is getting Valspar to pay for redecoration is a brilliant result, and also an unusual result. Pushing for more is a risky scenario, but this could be another lesson in life.

Not unusual, they have now admitted liability but due to the sheer volume of complaints, are not exactly making it easy for customers to access this. This demonstrates that you are in no way impacted or involved with this situation.

roddydogs

Strangley ive never seen Valspar paint on sale at any diy store ive been to. I thought it went out in the 50s.