Repainting woodwork after smoker

[The Pet Human]

One room in my house has been occupied for the last ten years by a very heavy smoker, so I'm redecorating it.

The walls are coming up fine with a hard scrubbing and a repaint, but I'm not sure what to do about the woodwork, which was painted ten years ago with white gloss.

It's all in very good condition -- no flaking, very few dents and chips etc -- and in other conditions, I would be happy to just sand it with wet-and-dry, touch up the chipped bits, and then paint one undercoat before re-glossing.

However, the normal sanding doesn't entirely remove the yellow stain. I don't think I need worry about it showing through the paint, but I do worry about it not providing enough adhesion.

Can anyone tell me whether I need to sand off all the yellowed stuff?

Thanks!

[Rob Morley]

Doesn't sugar soap shift it?

[jacob]

Sugar soap

[Dave Plowman (News)]

White gloss paint goes yellow of its own accord even without a smoker, while white emulsion doesn't - or at least not to the same extent.

Wash the gloss with a sugar soap solution to remove grease etc, then sand to provide a key. If the end result is sound with no bare wood showing, one coat of undercoat and two of gloss should do it. If rubbing down reveals bare wood, use wood primer first on those areas.

[Uno Hoo!]

Just makes you realise what the inside of smokers' lungs must be like doesn't it? Anyone watch 'Your life in their hands' the other night and see the black lungs of that smoker they opened up? Baffles me how anyone can deliberately do this to their own body. They clearly need psychiatric help.

Kev

[The Pet Human]

No, I'm afraid it doesn't.

There _was_ a yellow film on the surface, but I have already washed that off.

This is the paint itself yellowed.

[chris French]

In message , The Pet Human writes

I'd not worry about it then., just prepare as normal. Don't forget that white paint yellows a bit anyway with exposure to light.

We had a house that had been owned by a heavy smoker, I don't remember having any problem with the paintwork on the woodwork..

[Huge]

Wrong way round, at least for gloss. It yellows through *lack* of exposure to light.

And no, I didn't entirely believe it until we moved our Welsh dresser the other day and saw the colour of the skirting board behind it.

[ben]

Uno Hoo! wrote: [snip]

No more than a Alcoholic, shammy leather(liver) springs to mind.

[Uno Hoo!]

Indeed - but you can drink moderately without harming your health. Breathing toxic fumes into lungs designed to run on fresh air can only be harmful to health - as anyone with half a brain would realise.

Kev

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Then you're in favour of banning cars, etc? ;-)

[Andy Dingley]

As a chest surgeon once said to me, "If it was their ears that went this colour, no-one would smoke"

[Matt]

half a brain? I wonder if Dribble has a view on this?

[The Pet Human]

Many thanks to Chris, Dave and Huge for their help -- that gives me confidence to go ahead and repaint without wearing my fingers to the bone sanding!

Pity, though, that others decided not to answer my question, but to use the the thread to declaim about the evils smoking. I had noticed!

[Derek ^]

In the mid '60s I worked over the school holidays for an electrician who had a contract with Tetley's to service the extractor fans in their pubs. Usually the ducting over the bar was a simple plywood affair about 6"x6". We were called out to one pub where the airflow had more or less stopped and replaced the pre-war fan but there was not much improvement. Further investigation revealed that all four faces inside the ducting were adorned with black sooty/tarry stalactites/mites about 2'' long, grown as a result of about 40 years of clearing smokers breath from the bar.

I was 15 at the time and that experience, including the smell of 40 year old stale tobacco breath was enough to ensure I never started smoking.

DG

[Derek ^]

It could be that your Welsh dresser has been outgassing something (Natural Turpentine?, Wood Preserver?) that has collected round the back and not been able to readily escape because of close proximity to the wall.

DG

[Stuart Noble]

Welsh dressers are clearly a menace to society

[Derek ^]

It's them tall hats... :-)

DG

[Uno Hoo!]

That's the problem with usenet - people get side-tracked and begin interesting conversations;-)

Kev

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