Painting walls

[ninamh]

Hi, I need to paint my walls. The developer has used the cheapest paint ever. As a result, they now have marks which are impossible to remove whatever I use. As a Norwegian I would go for Jotun. When in Spain etc.. what should I use? Normally shiny paint is the strongest and the easiest to keep clean, but I do not like the walls to get too shiny. Anyone - please??

[spanish_lad]

go down to eroski myramar and buy the cheap 20 euro 15L "pintura plastico interior". paint the walls, then do it again next year, and the year after.. etc etc . walls dont last long

[Bluebell]

My interior walls are crumbly and in winter white salt cyrstals start to emerge (!) Is there any way to prevent this? A treatment or something? Or is it just like you say Spanish lad, keep doing it every year to keep on top of it?
My walls are about half a metre thick.

[spanish_lad]

take all the flakey paint off -scraper- then pva the walls. then paint over it.

that should work. its the water in the paint reacting with the lime in the walls (i think, something like that) by pva´ing you´ll be sealing the lime inside and it should paint over ok

[Bluebell]

So it's all nonsense about having to let the walls breath then? Here they lime wash the walls so they can breath and as you say it needs doing annually.

[gerryh]

You are correct. Lime wash lets any moisture in the walls escape.
If you paint the walls with PVA or any non breathable type paint then the moisture is retained in the wall. The real problems start when the water can no longer escape.

Cheers
Gerry

[spanish_lad]

gerry .. how many people still limewash their houses ?

last time i saw someone watering down paint that much.. it was 10 years ago in nerja, one 15L tub of white paint in a drum of water, mix it up and slap it on.

if limewashing was the answer why is it not still comercially avaliable ? go into aki etc and try and find it? 300 different types of plastico paint and i´ve not seen whitewash for years...

[hillybilly]

Plastico is fine if you use the breathable version.

[gerryh]

gerry .. how many people still limewash their houses ?

...

Those who live in old houses that have been built using lime mortar.
Also seen it used on the outside walls of new houses near where I live.
Cheers
Gerry

[Devils Advocate]

Yep, that's all they use by our place too. Our new house was painted with it.........turns a great shade of blue when it rains though

[geegee]

Presumably if you seal the inside of external walls of a detached house with PVA prior to painting its ok as the moisture can escape through the outside? Unless you a have an impermeable render outside perhaps I am all for breathability and going with traditional methods but not damp internal walls! One thing I have noticed is that airbricks are rare, and dpc's unheard of! Do modern houses incorporate any form of dpc? I mentioned to a builder once the old-fashioned method of using a layer of slate in the external construction to prevent rising damp and he thought this was so off the wall I don't think he quite believed me!

[Bluebell]

So I think I have to put up with the wierd salt crystals coming out of the walls of my 500+ year old house.
I do worry about the damp getting to our chests and causing asthma/bronchitus etc.
I guess I should have bought a new adosados.
Another thing I wondered about was buying some sheets of marine plywood and screwing those to the walls and then painting over that, but would it work? and I'm talking a huge surface area of walls, so a considerable financial outlay....socorro!

[spanish_lad]

oh right so it is still used in some places ..sorry gerry, my apologies. i guess i´d have to get used to that if we move over there then

love all these surprises in spain

[Jool]

Bluebell - you would be better off using pladur and putting insulation in as well, you only need a total depth of 12cm from original wall and if you support the pladur just above floor level (in case there is a crack in the cement and the plasterboard soaks up odd drops of moisture from the floor when washing it) and put rodapie along the front you will never notice the difference except your walls will not be wet or cold on the inside.......

[Bluebell]

Wow, Jool, that's fantastic, thank you.