# Rehabbing House And Paint Keeps Cracking



## caseyleen (Feb 5, 2010)

Bought a foreclosed old house and am rehabbing it. When I first looked at it, the paint was cracking and peeling in the living room and bedrooms. There were so many coats of paint that the flakes were as thick as an egg shell. It looks like semi gloss enamel. Well we scraped and cut out the peeling paint off the walls. We filled the gaps in with mud and sanded. We used several coats of primer. A week later we see cracks appearing again. No peeling but lines where the old and new paint were coming loose from the plaster. This wasn't the plaster peeling. So once again we take a scraper or knife and remove the loose paint. Remud and repaint. I tried a clear paste looking material that stops paint from peeling and it is not working well because like i said, the peels are the same thickness as eggshells. So far no one has an answer. The last thing I want to do is fix the whole house, put it up for sale and the old paint coming up under the new paint. Any ideas? We sanded and primed the walls. I never seen anything like this. There isn't any mold or moisture problem causing this.


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## Red Adobe (Jul 26, 2008)

first guese is bad prep work along the lines or someone painted latex over oil based


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## neolitic (Apr 20, 2006)

I'm going to guess that there *is*
a moisture problem.
How about a few clues?
Is it insulated?
How?
What's the exterior?
Siding?
Stucco?
Brick?
Is it on a crawl?
Damp basement?
Slab?
Where is it?
.................


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## festerized (May 19, 2007)

Don’t forget these older houses where balloon framed.
There is an open wall cavity from the basement to the rafters. As warmer air rises it take the colder damper air with it.


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## boman47k (Oct 13, 2006)

Is the house heated?

My house never had insulation except for I put in it in the walls. I never saw any peeling paint on the walls. 
That being said, I have noticed a little peeling around the bthrm sink where I did not caulk. That is all the peeling I have evr seen in this old house. When I see these posts about peeling paint on the interiors, I am a little perplexed unless there is some kind of moisture problem. I am wondering if the kind of heat used is producing moisture.


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## gallerytungsten (Jul 5, 2007)

In addition to the points mentioned above, there could be ongoing movement in your structure.


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## Metro M & L (Jun 3, 2009)

If your going down to bare plaster (not drywall) and priming/painting with regular latex it will fail just like you have described. Prime with oil, problem solved.


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## Jeffrey Watson (Oct 12, 2009)

*oil based paint*

The problem is oil based paint. Some where in the several coats of paint is a coat or two of oil based paint. Oil based paint when dried offers a harder surface than latex paint. Both indoor and outdoor. Not better necessarily but HARDER. This is good until the oil based paint dries out. When oil based paint dries out it turns to hard chips. when latex dries out over time it blisters. Blistere can be dealt with more easily than chips. Whatever layer the oil based paint is is the problem. It has dried out and lost its adhesion to the sibstrate and all layers after that are equally affected. Its not easily remedied. I made the mistake years ago on my garage with oil based paint. Eventually all oil based paint will dry out and chip and chipping is the hardest thing to make look good or remedy.


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## greengirl1 (Jun 15, 2010)

Are you talking about paint on drywall, old plaster, wood? What?


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## caseyleen (Feb 5, 2010)

greengirl1 said:


> are you talking about paint on drywall, old plaster, wood? What?


 
plaster


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## Ole34 (Jan 29, 2011)

i see this a lot in homes that have been sitting with NO HEAT for an extended period of time, hot cold hot cold will cause problems........also paint just fails as does the plaster underneath over time.........remember 1 thing, FRESH PAINT DOESNT JUMP OFF A WALL OR CEILING ITS FORCED OFF........ the root of this problem is the plaster itself and the initial layer of paint both of which are failing forcing everything else off

everybody wants to say BAD PREP at first but depending on how old the house is i wouldnt be surprised if the initial coat just said ''screw this'' and FAILED ......... not so uncommon, and if your initial coat gives then everything over it will give. if the paint is coming off down to plaster you will always have a problem no matter what you do short of new drywall over the entire area or just gutting the joint


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## Ole34 (Jan 29, 2011)

Jeffrey Watson said:


> The problem is oil based paint. Some where in the several coats of paint is a coat or two of oil based paint. Oil based paint when dried offers a harder surface than latex paint. Both indoor and outdoor. Not better necessarily but HARDER. This is good until the oil based paint dries out. When oil based paint dries out it turns to hard chips. when latex dries out over time it blisters. Blistere can be dealt with more easily than chips. Whatever layer the oil based paint is is the problem. It has dried out and lost its adhesion to the sibstrate and all layers after that are equally affected. Its not easily remedied. I made the mistake years ago on my garage with oil based paint. Eventually all oil based paint will dry out and chip and chipping is the hardest thing to make look good or remedy.


 
i failed to mention in exact words what you had done in such detail, maybe next time ill read all the replies lol........good post man !!! spot on !!!


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## Ole34 (Jan 29, 2011)

double post


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## icsbill (Nov 3, 2009)

Ole great explanation. In Chicago land area A LOT of homes are plastered and they have the same problem with chipping and the more you introduce moisture to it the more chipping/blistering happens. I'll prime with a oil then patch with durabond 20 brown bag, smooth out before it sets, then top coat with 45 for smooth finish.


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## Joe C (Jul 13, 2010)

Metro M & L said:


> If your going down to bare plaster (not drywall) and priming/painting with regular latex it will fail just like you have described. Prime with oil, problem solved.


 I have to agree, i think oilbase primer will solve the problem.


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## jsheridan (Mar 12, 2011)

I'm betting that the substrate has reached its maximum number of coats it can hold. At some point, the stress and the weight of the coats will literally peel the first coat away from the substrate, especially on plaster. You keep mentioning how thick the chips are. I've seen this twice in my life, once in a old home with plaster walls, and once on an old farm house exterior where the paint was falling off in sheets, which were about an eighth inch thick. In the old house I scraped as much as possible with a flexible spackle knife, primed with Cover Stain, spackled and finished. The lady told me that every time it was painted previously the paint literally fell off the ceiling. When I first looked at the job it was hanging down like streamers, never saw anything like it before. The system I used seemed to work, as she never told me it failed.


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## swilbanks75 (Mar 20, 2011)

I would sand with a sanding pole. Then rub on some type of degloss. Then prime with oil based then sand again before painting. This might help you, I know this is frustrating.


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## Gough (May 1, 2010)

I realize that this in an old thread, but I think Ole was on the mark about the heat being off. We've seen the same thing in major renovastions where the properties were abandoned. Once that paint has started to fail in such a widespread manner, I don't see any good solution. For those suggesting oil-based primer on plaster, be sure to check for hot spots (high pH). Most oil primers are not alkali resistant, and can be a problem on plaster or cement/concrete. Nearly all latex primers, on the other hand, do well under those conditions.


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## roads (Jul 19, 2011)

If all else fails you can skim the whole wall with a couple coats of sheet-rock mud and prime then paint again, this will last a good wile.


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## Frankawitz (Jun 17, 2006)

This house was frozen at some point in it's history, I have seen it before I found that using Durabond 90 wouldn't help, it would make the paint pull off the plaster. so watch skimming over the paint. I ended up using a 4" razor wallpaper stripper and just shaved the paint from the plaster, that was the only way we got rid of the cracks. But now with the EPA I wouildn't take a chance on doing that.


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