Advice on what paint to use

[Niy]

Hi all,

Just moved into an old house with single brick construction, have yet to strip off all the lining paper and what not, but I'd say all the bedrooms and the living room have lime plaster. Rest of the house is probably a combination of lime plaster and the salmon sort of colour modern plaster. I know these walls need to breathe and so I know standard emulsion paint isn't good for them. However, I would like to save a few quids if possible, becacuse breathable paints are expensive. So can I ask, is it just the external walls that need to breathe? Do the internal partition walls / party walls to neigbours house need to breathe as well? Or should they?

Say for example, my bedroom has 2 external walls, 1 party wall and 1 partition wall. I have no idea what the neighbours have on their partition wall and the other side of the partition wall is painted with I believe standard emulsion paint. So is there any need for all the walls to be painted with low SD rating paint?

Putting the cost aside, I am also a bit worried about not being able to completely clean off the wallpaper paste, so if I could get away with coating some of the walls with Zinsser Gardz, it'd save me a lot of time and anxiety. Spoke to Zinsser and they said do not use Gardz on walls that need to breathe as it will effectively create a brand new surface.

Also, is there any reason to paint the ceilings with breathable paint as well? It's just lath and plaster and we have overboarded some ceiling because of artex.

Sorry about the long post and silly questions, this is my first owned property so want to do everything right even if it means it will cost more than a trip down to the local B&Q.

Thanks a lot!

 

[aockenden]

Partition walls and walls shared with other houses are definitely less risky when it comes to reduced breathability / capillary moisture wicking. Mainly this is because they won’t be getting rained on, and both sides of those walls should be relatively warm meaning the risk for condensation is much lower.

I’d still encourage you to use nice natural paints wherever possible though, you could always make your own clay paint for very cheap (if you can be bothered).

 

[Stevers]

Paint breathability is a spectrum, and in our basement I have no qualms about using 'flat matt' emulsion paints (for example Farrow & Ball Estate Emulsion) or 'contract' matt emulsions. The latter can be tinted, but in white is as cheap as chips. Flat matts wear slightly better than contract emulsions, but there's not a lot in it. I use flat matt for dado and walls, and home tinted contract emulsion above dado and for drops and ceilings. I take the view that these are the synthetic equivalent of the old distemper paints.

 

[Niy]

Partition walls and walls shared with other houses are definitely less risky when it comes to reduced breathability / capillary moisture wicking. Mainly this is because they won’t be getting rained on, and both sides of those walls should be relatively warm meaning the risk for condensation is much lower.

I’d still encourage you to use nice natural paints wherever possible though, you could always make your own clay paint for very cheap (if you can be bothered).

Wouldn't the walls that have been plastered with gypsym plaster not breathable anymore? As with those that have been painted with normal paint? I have done the maths to use specilaist paint (yet to decide which), but if some of the walls have been "blocked" and not breathable, then I am thinking, other than matching the colour and finish, is there a reason to use the same type of specialist paint?

 

[Niy]

Paint breathability is a spectrum, and in our basement I have no qualms about using 'flat matt' emulsion paints (for example Farrow & Ball Estate Emulsion) or 'contract' matt emulsions. The latter can be tinted, but in white is as cheap as chips. Flat matts wear slightly better than contract emulsions, but there's not a lot in it. I use flat matt for dado and walls, and home tinted contract emulsion above dado and for drops and ceilings. I take the view that these are the synthetic equivalent of the old distemper paints.

What do you use for the rest of your house if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Stevers]

A lot of wallpaper, and lining paper with flat matt emulsions. Some vinyl matt emulsions where it really doesn't matter because the walls had previously been oil painted, or on new gypsum plaster skimmed plasterboard ceilings. We did use bathroom paint in the shower room and kitchen - both 'upstairs' (from the basement). This worked for the shower room on either lining paper or new plaster, but not so successful in the kitchen on the original painted lath and plaster ceiling as it's coming off in flakes.

In 27 years, our biggest blunder though was papering the hall and landing with a vinyl paper, the hall being almost entirely 'upstairs' apart from a couple of feet each side of the front door case where it's very predictably lifted above the skirting board. We reckon on redecorating every twenty years and much of it has only been decorated once by us and it's all fairly presentable - apart from the kitchen. I'm fairly sure that our failures have been more to do with inadequate preparation in the early days (kitchen ceiling and window splay) rather than having completely the wrong paint for the situation. Paint breathability is a spectrum and to me it's all about reducing risk by use of more predictable (breathable) materials. Kitchen redecoration is coming up and would I use bathroom paint again? Well I probably will, but I'd definitely give the ceiling (and window splay) a really good clean, scrape and clean (degrease) first.

 

[Niy]

Lining paper is what everyone told me but I don't like them. To be honest, as I said in my original post, half the house is painted with I don't know what, probably the cheapest emulsion paint. The family who lived here before are tight as anything. I don't suppose there is a way to confirm what type of paint (other then lead) is currently on any given wall, is there?

 

[Zebra]

The breathability of the paint probably isn't really the issue though, not the only one anyway. With single skin the walls will always be cold, so you'll always get condensation on cold spots whether the walls are breathable or not, leading to damp patches and potentially mould.
Have you considered internally insulating the walls with wood wool or wood fibre boards?
Internal wall insulation isn't as good as external because it effectively makes the masonry colder than it would have been, whereas insulating externally keeps the walls warmer than they would have been.
But it would make the room cosier. Then you would use the paint that is suitable for whatever plaster is suitable for the insulating boards.
Or you could plaster with hemp - it's insulating in itself, though not as effectively as wood fibre.

 

[Lacan07]

When you said 'single brick construction' did you mean 'solid brick construction'?

 

[Flyfisher]

I read somewhere that contract emulsion does not contain any vinyl, hence why it is often used on new build plastered walls and ceilings because its breathability means it can be applied before the plaster has fully dried out - time often being of the essence for new builds - which it will have done by the time the new owners move in and smother everything with modern vinyl emulsion paints, when long term breathability is rarely important.

But I couldn't remember where I'd read this and so wrote to Leyland paints to ask if they could confirm that their contract matt emulsion was vinyl free, which they couldn't do and only gave a vague answer confirming it was 'breathable'.

Hmm, I guess that's not a terribly helpful post.

 

[housewinnie]

Are any of the walls damp. If not and the lining paper is in not bad condition I would just paint over it. Stripping lining paper quite often leaves a mess behind especially if the walls have previously been painted. I have used earthborn clay paint in white. And painted over pink in one coat.

 

[Niy]

Are any of the walls damp. If not and the lining paper is in not bad condition I would just paint over it. Stripping lining paper quite often leaves a mess behind especially if the walls have previously been painted. I have used earthborn clay paint in white. And painted over pink in one coat.

None of the walls are damp, when it was really cold, there were a few damp patches, but they have all gone now, so I put it down to condensation. The lining paper was not installed properly, you can tell it was a really badl DIY job. Also, we have stripped 2 of the rooms now, the condition of the plaster is actually better than expected and it's mostly bare plaster.

 

[Niy]

I read somewhere that contract emulsion does not contain any vinyl, hence why it is often used on new build plastered walls and ceilings because its breathability means it can be applied before the plaster has fully dried out - time often being of the essence for new builds - which it will have done by the time the new owners move in and smother everything with modern vinyl emulsion paints, when long term breathability is rarely important.

But I couldn't remember where I'd read this and so wrote to Leyland paints to ask if they could confirm that their contract matt emulsion was vinyl free, which they couldn't do and only gave a vague answer confirming it was 'breathable'.

Hmm, I guess that's not a terribly helpful post.

I think Leyland and Jonstone's are owned by the same people? Is that right? If so, they told me don't use their paint on lime plaster because none have an SD rating, which measn none of their paint is breathable.

 

[Niy]

When you said 'single brick construction' did you mean 'solid brick construction'?

Yes

 

[Zebra]

Yes

Oh, I misunderstood then. I thought we were talking about 4 and a half inch wall (single brick) but we're talking about 9 inch wall.

 

[Lacan07]

Many people choose not to lime on the upper floors to save money, if you want to keep the upstairs external walls breathable that's up to you. If not make sure all guttering / roof is sound and you don't suffer driving rain. If you don't have any obvious issues downstairs with rising damp I guess you could use standard paint on internal walls. Be warned however, it's not easy mixing / matching breathable and non-breathable paints, if the overall design bothers you that much. Limewash is by far the most breathable and the least expensive, but from a practical perspective its not the easiest to work with. I found clay paint struggled to homogenise the lighter and darker parts of my lime plaster, about 6 coats to be exact, although that might say more about my crappy lime skills than anything else.

 

[Toby Newell]

Johnstones and Leyland are separate companies both now owned under the PPG umbrella.

All finishes are somewhat breathable.

Johnstones do an excellent microporous water based varnish, they also make microporous exterior paints, not sure if they market any interior ones but they certainly know how to make breathable finishes.

Unfortunately getting accurate technical information from many companies can be impossible these days, so take anything they say with a pinch of salt. I have got both Osmo and Liberon to change some of their SDS sheets as they were years out of date.

Yes. As flyfisher says, contract emulsion is somewhat more breathable for the reasons he says. Possibly latex based.

PVA can be incredibly breathable (PVA sealer) but also made not to be (D4 PVA glue) PVC resins are generally not breathable, so saying 'vinyl' doesn't mean much unless you know the specific chemistry. Having said that, vinyl paints designed to be water washable are by definition probably not very breathable!.

Breathability is also cumulative. So lining paper reduces, as does paint etc. Paint direct to gypsum is better than over paper, but not as good as direct to lime...etc.

Zebra also makes a good point. The approach should be holistic, iterative and symbiotic. Condensation can be a big issue as can heat and ventillation, breathability is just one piece of the puzzle.

 

[malcolm]

By stripping off the lining paper you can get back to bare plaster applied more than 100 years ago. Any paint you put directly on the plaster will prevent anybody from doing the same thing in the future. New lining paper stuck with a cold paste is the answer and if you put some plastic paint on top when the wall wants to let water out it'll push the paper off the wall and you have the chance to try again.

We criticise the '70s when old house stuff was unpopular and a lot of features were removed and ruined. We're getting better at old houses but it is absolutely normal these days to paint plastic emulsions that can never be removed without removing the original plaster.