# How long is paint good for stored in bucket?



## rtztgue

Hopefully a quick question. 

I have a 5 gallon bucket of paint that is 6 years old and about half full. Looks like it has separated and is either bad or just needs to be shaken (stirred) really well. Is there an easy way to know if it is still good?

Will lowes or home depot or ace shake it for me if I bring it in?


----------



## Workaholic

I would just put a paddle mixer on a drill and mix it, smell the paint if it is bad it should smell like ammonia or just simply smell rotten, bad paint can also start seeding. If it does not smell bad then strain it using a paint strainer or use a section of a pair of your wife's panty hose. If this is for your own home you can risk using it it if it is a customers home buy fresh material.


----------



## SuperiorHIP

Most bad paint I come across (latex) smells like a wheel barrow of eggs that have been in the sun for a week or so. I don't chance oil that too old because sometimes it wont dry.


----------



## Sir Mixalot

What the Workaholic said. :thumbup:

-Paul


----------



## 4thGeneration

Glad I never had to hold onto paint that long to have to ask.Just kidding ya. I would say as long as you sealed it up tight maybe a year. Make sure you stir it up then strain it before use though. Let it acclimatize to whatever environment it needs to before you apply it though.


----------



## Pete'sfeets

plastic tubs never keep as long as the steel ones, try Behr ceiliing paint, it is always lumpy on top but not the small can, plastic breathes. Someone had a theory that i agree with , that mold spores are invariably on the wall so the leftover paint gets infected. But also true is the 2006 can I just found , mmmm good as new, quart missing but the top line stuff You know has resistance to mold but cheap stuff , comes in a big bucket.


----------



## roads

If your paint has been in a controlled environment where the temp hasnt changed much then its probably fine, if it has froze at all then its garbage if the temp has gone from one extreme to another id trash it as well.


----------



## Workaholic

roads said:


> if it has froze at all then its garbage if the temp has gone from one extreme to another id trash it as well.


Paint can handle x amount of freeze cycles around 3 or 4 I think but you have to figure when being transported in the winter it has already occurred a freeze.


----------



## roads

Workaholic said:


> Paint can handle x amount of freeze cycles around 3 or 4 I think but you have to figure when being transported in the winter it has already occurred a freeze.


I'm just going by past experience. Here's an example. We painted a few First Unions about 8 years ago(maybe more) we used a ext promar dont remember which one but we had all our paint inside a store room all but a half a 5 that sat in the truck and froze one night when the temp dropped, when we went back to work wasn't gonna use it but someone grabbed it up a few days later and used it on the front top section of this bank(repaint) it looked fine for the first 3 months or so but as the summer months progressed the paint started coming off in strips everywhere that frozen paint was put on. Same thing happen to an INT job we did, we let 4 gallons of paint freeze in a basement but used it anyways and a couple days after we did we could rub our fingers down the wall and rub the paint off like sun burnt skin, we had to clean ever bit of that paint off and killz the rooms back out, again it was promar paint so I don't know if its just the promar or freezing of the paints in general but I know I would never use paint that froze again.


----------



## roads

Workaholic said:


> Paint can handle x amount of freeze cycles around 3 or 4 I think but you have to figure when being transported in the winter it has already occurred a freeze.


Never hard of paints having freeze cycles so I did some checking (not much, but a little) and found this from sherwin williams
http://www.sherwin-williams.com/pdf/ppc/2010_winter/frozen-paint.pdf

and also 
http://www.ehow.com/about_5366822_can-latex-semigloss-paint-frozen.html


----------



## Workaholic

roads said:


> I'm just going by past experience. Here's an example. We painted a few First Unions about 8 years ago(maybe more) we used a ext promar dont remember which one but we had all our paint inside a store room all but a half a 5 that sat in the truck and froze one night when the temp dropped, when we went back to work wasn't gonna use it but someone grabbed it up a few days later and used it on the front top section of this bank(repaint) it looked fine for the first 3 months or so but as the summer months progressed the paint started coming off in strips everywhere that frozen paint was put on. Same thing happen to an INT job we did, we let 4 gallons of paint freeze in a basement but used it anyways and a couple days after we did we could rub our fingers down the wall and rub the paint off like sun burnt skin, we had to clean ever bit of that paint off and killz the rooms back out, again it was promar paint so I don't know if its just the promar or freezing of the paints in general but I know I would never use paint that froze again.


Hard to say if it was caused by the paint being frozen because there are a lot of variables, could of been anything from improper prep or maybe the frozen paint was not slowly thawed out, hard to say without experiencing it firsthand but if I was you I probably would stay away from frozen paint myself. The best thing to do is to store your paint where it will not freeze, I was simply pointing out that if your paint freezes in many cases it is still usable and if there is any doubt then simply replace it and next time prevent it from freezing. 

There are many articles out there like this one that mention freeze cycles
http://nwrenovation.com/painting-articles/storing-paint/


----------

