Fluffy salt stuff appearing on newly plastered and painted walls

robyn1

Hi, I need some advice on a newly plastered wall.. I had my kitchen walls plastered about 3 months ago, I have painted the kitchen about 2 months after it was plastered and this fluffy, white salty looking stuff keeps appearing on my kitchen wall.. ie brushed it off but it keeps returning.

What condensation cause this? I don’t no what it is or how to get rid of it. It’s making the paint flake from the walls onto my counter tops. It’s a pain and not very pleasant. Especially when we put the extractor fan on, it seems to help blow the flakey paint over the counters.

Any advice would be much appreciated as I literally don’t no how to permanently remove this.

PasturesNew

How old is the house?
How far up is the salt appearing?

It's possible, say, that a Victorian house, with the kitchen part "built directly onto the land without real foundations" has a slight rising damp situation.... which would be quite common to see.... for example.

robyn1

The house is really old, it was built it 1920’s. It’s only appearing up really high on the wall, above the extractor fan, it’s close to the ceiling. Just random patches over the wall. We had a DPC applied to house as the only DPC was breaking down, we had a small bit of damp at the front of the house but the DPC and replastering after took it away completely. Now we had a new light put out the back of the house as we had the whole place rewired and there is a wet patch on the ceiling right where the outside light is, I don’t think around the Eletrician sealed around the wire when tracking it through the wall and I do believe this has cause the wet patch on the ceiling, we are going to seal around it tomorrow as it’s awful weather tonight. Would this wet patch cause the fluffy salt?

Twopints

Sounds like it is Efflorescence

Mr.Generous

Wot he said

Its salts from the new plaster, you should only paint with paint for new plaster or a non vinyl type emulsion.

How soon after the plastering did you paint?

Brushing it off dry is the best thing to do, if you use a damp or wet cloth the salts dissolve and will just re crystallise later.

Doozergirl

Would this wet patch cause the fluffy salt?

Yes.

robyn1

Ok cool, thanks for the help. I will try this and hope it helps!!