removing flaky old paint prior to plastering

[ANt]

argghh!!!

Why does it always happen ! You start a job and uncover more work.

In an old victorian house I thought I was used to coming across 'little' things that set the job back. Just started the kitchen which was a job I really didn't have time to do myself so have got a next door neighbour in to do the work.

The existing kitchen (a 70's flat roof extension looking from the outside) was dry lined so the plan was to gut the kitchen back to the brick, plaster and fit the kitchen etc etc. (there was damp and I needed to get a chemical DPC in so needed gutting anyway)

First day on the job and I get home tonight to find behind the dry lining the wall was painted..looks older on the inside than the outside also..hmmmm...I guess that's why they dry lined :-( The paint is very flakey and the old brickwork quite crumbly.

Now I have until next Tuesday to remove the flakey paint so that the plasterer has something to key into.

my thoughts....

Old Drill with a metal brush attachement was my thought (several metal brush attachments no doubt), but have no idea how long these will last, and how long it'll take me to do.

Plasterer recommended an Air-needle gun but these look like a very small area of impact and not sure how long that will take...

HSS also have a 'Hand-Held Scabbler' that looks fun, about brick size by the looks of it but I'm worried that these power tools will just destroy the crumbly brickwork...

anyone have any experience of doing this ? any one with any recommendations ? any clues how long it'll take ?

exposed wall so far is 4.5M long * 2.4M high (recon the opposite wall will be the same, but at least that has a window in it)

yet to find the other end of the 'mysterious' ring main that comes in from upstairs.....

cheers, Ant.

[Scott Mills]

Why not dry line it again? Would reduce any problems with condensation in the Kicthen and give a nice surface to paint / tile onto?

[andrewpreece]

I had to remove flaky paint from an internal wall, rendered with lime mortar. Unfortunately it is a very difficult task, made more difficult in my case as sanding or scraping the wall often took off the very thin smoothed surface of the lime mortar and revealed loose gritty stuff beneath.

FWIW I found that using a scaper was one tedious method of removing the paint, but not 100% successful, so needing sanding,which tore up the surface of the wall. Wetting the flaky paint made it slightly softer and easier to remove. In order to stabilise the wall surface and prevent it crumbling whilst I removed paint I found watered down PVA was a boon.

If you're desperate you could use paint stripper but you'll need an awful lot. A crap job whatever way you do it!

Andy.

[stuart noble]

Can't believe a 30 year old structure would be suffering from rising damp.

Oil paint on the inside is a sure sign that the previous owners had penetrating damp problems, and flaking paint is pretty conclusive.

I think I'd postpone the plastering. If the DPC doesn't solve the whole problem (which I'd put money on), you'll be back to square one. As someone else has said, why not plasterboard it again and just get the plasterer in to skim it? Try one board and see if it stays dry. Has to be easier than needle guns etc (though of course less work for the plasterer.....) I would look at the outside pointing. If it comes away cleanly from the brick, it's not doing its job and should be replaced. Then of course there's the flat roof. They always leak but you should see evidence of that on the ceiling as well. I think you need to find the source of damp before thinking about plaster.

[Andrew Gabriel]

What sort of paint? If the paint is porous (to dilute PVA at least), I would just seal it on with that.

[ANt]

"stuart noble" >outside) was dry lined so the plan was to gut the kitchen back to the

Now that the dry-linings off, I'm having the sureveyor back to retest the walls.

Having looked at the construction, it may actually be older since about 1/3rd of the way along the exposed wall there's a column of half bricks at 90 degrees from floor to ceiling (the quarry tiles are different along that line on the floor which on it's own didn't mean much, but in conjunction with what appears to be an old end wall suggests it's been extended/modified whatever). The far corner brick work is blackened so they may have knocked through and renovated an old coal shed. The flat roof did leak and I replaced that last year..there are no Ridge tiles along the raised edges/parapits of the roof which will be causing runoff down the walls contributing to any penetrating damp over the years. I don't see that as a huge problem now that the leaks have been stopped but will be getting those installed as well.

There is an old barrier DPC line there and a chemical DPC that has been drilled through the barrier all the way along the wall in the past (that must be well over 15 years ago and it's also too close to the solid floor anyway). It's possible, tho I have not been able to check yet, that this line is still below the neighbours patio and this is something that will be checked out this week. The neigbour is willing to dig out if neccesary as we had a similar problem in the main part of the building where his patio was blocking out our air bricks.

So it's apparent that there was a damp problem that a chemical DPC didn't neccesarily cure. Whether it was installed incorrectly, or whether it was done so long ago it's past its best for the 300-400 pounds it costs, I'll need to get it done again as the house is situated at the base of a steep incline which is the root of most of the damp problems in the past and better to do it now, rather than later. For the guarantee, that requires plastering to a specific depth with salt retardent/waterproofed render. Dry-Lining doesn't meet the spec.

Cheers, Ant.

[Andrew Gabriel]

If the walls are just slightly damp, what you can do is to have a scratch coat of sand/cement/waterproofer, which is more damp resistant than a plaster scratch coat (make that sand/cement/lime/ waterproofer if the walls are lime mortar). Where I've replastered external 9" brick walls, I've often used sand/cement/lime/waterproofer as the scratch coat within 2-3 feet of ground level.

They rarely ever do, because damp problems are rarely rising damp.

[stuart noble]

[stuart noble]

The house on last night's Property Ladder looked like a typical example of

9" lime mortar brickwork. No demolition required, just take the bricks off one by one and sweep away the mortar. They could have probably got 20p each for those in Richmond, which might have left them slightly less broke.

[Jerry Built]

If you still need to remove the paint the quickest way would be to get someone in to sand-blast it. Look in the Yellow Pages. Cost - maybe L.100, something like that.

JB --