New paint cracking on the wall???

kippers

My daughter and partner have just painted a room in an old house she has just moved into.  The walls were painted bright purple and it took four coats of dulux white paint to cover it.  The whole room looks fab now its dry when she showed me on facetime ( cant go to see it due to lockdown), but unfortunately now its dry one of the walls has a cracks all over it and i cant think why as all the other walls are ok.  It is a terraced house and therefore three of the walls are ‘inside’ walls and the cracked paintwork is one one of the inside walls ....so im at a loss why as its only one wall and all the walls were the same when they started painting ....... any ideas?

lesalanos

Matt paint over silk

Grabs39

Either they've painted matt on top of silk, or they haven't cleaned the wall before hand.

kippers

thanks for your replies but why would the other three walls be ok if this was the case?  If this is the case, how can they rectify it?

twopenny

Is it possible it had had some sort of wallpaper at some time as an accent wall and it was one of these self sticking ones that would leave a residue.

To get rid of the cracking I'd sand it down in a small area about a 1ft and test paint it - and repeat until it sticks without cracking then you can tell how much effort you need to put in before painting again.

You could try washing it down but I think whatever substance is causing this has probably mixed with the wet paint up to a point. Painting over is going to show the cracks still

kippers

Thank you for your replies XXX

flashg67

Just a thought from my own experience, did they allow plenty of time for each coat to dry, not just until it felt dry to the touch. Maybe an outside wall is slightly colder and takes slightly longer to dry?  I solved my cracking by a light sanding a repainting 

Rosa_Damascena

Was the paint too thick? I have learned from experience that less is more.

kippers

flashg67 said:

Just a thought from my own experience, did they allow plenty of time for each coat to dry, not just until it felt dry to the touch. Maybe an outside wall is slightly colder and takes slightly longer to dry?  I solved my cracking by a light sanding a repainting 

It wasnt an outside wall, but thank you for your reply.

Rosa_Damascena said:

Was the paint too thick? I have learned from experience that less is more.

It was painted the same on all four walls but only one wall had the cracks on it, but thank you for your reply XXX

noitsnotme

That’s what happens when you paint over wallpaper paste residue - I know because a relative did it once.  It’s possible the one wall was a ‘feature wall’ and was once wallpapered, later stripped off leaving an invisible thin layer of paste residue.  The paint on top has re-wet the paste residue which has combined with the paint and caused the cracking as it all dries.

Easiest way to hide it without having to do loads of prep is new wallpaper - make another feature wall.

I’ve just stripped a hallway of paper and removing the paste residue before painting has been a nightmare.  

Green_hopeful

We had the same painting Matt over silk or gloss. We wallpapered over it.