Whitewash under emuslion lifting

[Chris Bartram]

Today I though I'd start painting our hall, so I got out the sander, the filler, the sugar soap, the dustsheets et al.

First target for paint is the ceiling. I filled the holes and cracks, and set to cutting in the edges. So far so good.

Out with the roller, and as I paint the previous coat that was previously formly attached comes away onto the roller in sheets. Further inspection shows the last coat to be cheap paint, and below that there's what looks like whitewash (the house is late 19th century) that didn't have any primer/sealer on it by the looks of things.

I'm now left with a large area of paint that has fallen off and the remaining area of ceiling that still needs painting.

I think I've had this before in this house, and then I scraped off what was looseish (tiresome!) feathered the edges with filler, and brushed the paint carefully.

Anyone got a better idea? The paint will scrape off down to the whitewash, but that's hard going, and the only thing that makes it fall off is new paint being applied, it would seem.

[DIY]

Paint the area with stabilising solution, leave to dry overnight then emulsion as normal.

[mark]

Don't think there's any other way:

Scrape down to the whitewash. Seal with whitewash sealer. Paint.

mark

[RubberBiker]

I've not tried this, but I vaguely STR reading that using a wallpaper steam stripper can work.

[Chris Bartram]

I did wonder about that

Thanks all for respomses so far- keep them coming. I'm going to see how much scrapes off before I get sick of it.

[DIY]

Scraping will not get all the whitewash off, neither will a steam stripper. The only way is to treat the area with stabilising solution.

[Chris Bartram]

Yeah- thanks. Problem is the paint on top of the whitewash is lifting as there's poor adhesion, so I'll scrape the paint, then seal/stabilish the whitewash.

[NT]

if applying water causes it to lift, apply water and it should peel off. Then apply the minimum of very dilute pva, then paint. Beware of the pva slicking, if it does then painting it will be a horror.

NT

[Chris Bartram]

Regretfully, water doesn't lift it, but new paint has it peeling straight off :-(

[george (dicegeorge)]

if its like my house then its lime paint / lime wash which is porous unlike modern paint and used to be reapplied every year or two or wetted down...

I'm going to remove the emulsion using something like peelaway 7 or peelaway1

revert to porous lime because the emulsion was clogging up the beautiful mouldings...

[g]

[Stuart Noble]

The easy option is to just keep rolling the new paint back and forth until it binds up the old. At some point the whole lot should stabilise, and IME the final finish is surprisingly uniform. If you're using one of those gel consistency emulsions (the last Dulux I used was of that type), try thinning it a little, or switching to a bog standard own brand

[Chris Bartram]

My house is a basic ex-miner's house, so doesn't have any beautiful mouldings, sadly.

[Chris Bartram]

I did consider that, but it comes of in sheets, wraps around the roller, breaks up, and sticks back to the ceiling.

I've had this to a lesser degree in another room, and I think what I did was apint the whole lot with that crack-covering stuff.

Thanks everyone for suggestions, I'll post back with whatever I do.

[Stuart Noble]

Have you tried a "heavy duty scraper"? Just a 4" blade on a handle but, if the ceiling is reasonably flat, it might be a fine enough edge to get under the coating

[Chris Bartram]

I've just got the paint off with a scraper- one of those with a sharp blade at the end, like a stanly blade but 3-4" wide, so I guess that's what you meant. Created a hell of a mess, but it's off. Now need to get some stabiliser on it.

[Stuart Noble]

Yes, that's the thing