Nicotine on the ceiling

[Mike]

I have a very smoke laden room to paint. The ceiling is quite brown all over except above the fireplace where there is a large area where it is really dark with nicotine ....... you know the sort .... like where you see an old smoker's fingertips dark and engrained with the stuff.

I am pretty sure just painting brill white vinyl matt on it will just loosen it all to give a lovely streaky brown mess. I have steamed off wallpaper and watched nicotine run down the walls .. yuk. Will a good scrub with sugar soap be enough to get rid of it enabling me to paint ?

Mike P

[Bob Minchin]

I've had to deal with the same situation 6 months ago. The nicotine will have to come off as even if paint will initially mask it, in time it will bleed through. Three progressive scrubs with sugar soap and multiple coats of white emulsion seem to have done the trick. It was a horrible job to undertake. I've now got a tenant in the property (non smoking!!) so I'll not see the long term performance until the next inspection but so far so good and they have not complained about the decor yet!

Good Luck

Bob

[nightjar]

I had the same problem some years ago, with on old pub. Half a dozen washes with sugar soap didn't solve the problem, so, as the room was over 9ft high, I put in a suspended ceiling 6" below the real one.

Colin Bignell

[David in Normandy]

We had the same problem on moving into our French property. We were advised ordinary water based emulsion paint wouldn't work. Tried a small area and sure enough the brown just came straight through. On recommendation we ended up buying some spirit based white emulsion. It was expensive as hell, as paint tends to be in France anyway, but the brown has not come through after nearly four years of doing the job.

[The Medway Handyman]

Its got to come off completely or twill bleed through.

Rather than sugar soap, look in Yellow Pages & find a nearby Janitorial Supplies place. Pop in & ask for a really good Hard Surface Cleaner.

5litres will cost £10 max and will dilute heavily. A world apart from the products in supermarkets.

[Stuart Noble]

Oil based undercoat is cheap enough. Nothing bleeds through that IME

[dpydotsmw]

Are you going to carry on smoking in it? The top decks of London buses used to have their ceilings painted creamy beige so that the stains weren't so noticeable. I always thought it was quite a nice warm color for a ceiling.

-- Remember Dr Folkman

[Andrew Gabriel]

If the ceiling is in otherwise less than perfect condition, might be worthing thinking about replacing it instead.

[Mike]

Not my ceiling ......... but the guy who owns it is a heavy smoker.

Mike P

[Rednadnerb]

Not sure about cigarette tar but

Paint in France is a ridiculous price. I needed to paint over a strongly coloured wall in France a couple of years ago and cheap white emulsion made no impression so we were sold an oil based white paint which cost a fortune but did the job. I'm pretty sure it was just white oil based undercoat which you can get here for =A310 for 5 litres in Wickes. Next time i'm faced with whiting out a pink wall I'll use oil based undercoat first rather than 3 or 4 coats of emulsion.

Some people think a coat of PVA seals cigarette stains and it has been discussed here before but I don't think a conclusion was reached.

Brendan.

[JTM]

Sounds like he eats too much as well ;-)

John

[Matty F]

Certainly use the sugar soap, and then seal it with an oil-based sealer before you use undercoat & top coats.

[Mr Benn]

If the colour shows through the first coat of paint, try painting with an oil-based gloss and then overpaint with emulsion. The gloss will seal the stains in (probably).

[nmm1]

Not gloss - emulsion won't stick to it - an oil-based matt. You can also buy special paint for sealing such things in.

Regards, Nick Maclaren.

[Man at B&Q]

Surely if it's not water based, it ain't emulsion?

MBQ

[David in Normandy]

Technically speaking one fluid suspended as droplets in another fluid is an emulsion, it just happens that the most common emulsions people come across are paint where the oil based compounds are suspended as droplets in water. The opposite is true when making a sauce - the emulsion inverts and the water becomes suspended as droplets in the fats which is what makes a sauce thick. Frankly regarding the French paint all I know is that it was described as an oil based emulsion, what exactly went in to it I don't know. It worked anyway.