Paint suggestions for a small, steamy shower room

[Blackartz]

Hi folks,
just found this forum and it looks like an answer to my prayers! We own an old farmhouse parts of which seem to date back to Tudor, but its been substantially added to over the years. I have many questions, but the most pressing currently concerns the paint problems we've had in our shower room.

Shortly after we moved in about 10 years ago, we had a shower installed in our smallest bathroom. We had en extractor fan installed, but the builder didn't put it at ceiling height and its only manual, so people forget to use it. This means that it gets very steamy. We the walls decorated with soya based paint which seemed to tick many of our boxes, but fairly quickly the pain began to flake off. Two walls are lime plastered I think, and these have the least problem with the flaking. The two plaster boarded walls suffer the most along with the ceiling which looks like wattle and daub or plasterboard with many uneven layers of plaster on top.

I'm wondering if a clay based or casein based paint would do a better job, or whether any breathable paint applied to these surfaces will flake off? Do I just need to redo it every couple of years?

 

[steveb]

I can only attest to about 4 years longevity at this point since it's only been there that long, but we used earthborn clay paint in our shower room and it's so far fine. This was on new plastered plasterboard

no obvious ill effects, even on the ceiling directly above the shower tray (where I did just notice that the light fitting is starting to rust...)

-Steve

 

[Tony.]

I have a humidity controlled fan in the kitchen, it has power to it all the time and it decides it's self at an adjustable humidity setting when to come on.

It comes on of you cook pasta and forget to put the lid on!
Is the room heated?
Is the bathroom ground floor?
Air vents blocked?
Debris piled against an outside wall?
Rainwater items such as downpipes and gutters not leaking?
leaking radiators?

 

[steveb]

our shower room dimensions are about 1m x 2m (contains a shower and a toilet) so pretty small - it does have a ventilation extract so clears fairly quickly but when you shower it gets as steamy as hell (and the toilet cistern get soaked with a covering of condensation on the outside) so even though it clears quickly it's probably comparable. I've just had a detailed look and apart from the rusting light fitting the clay paint itself shows no sign of distress - no difference in colour or texture above the shower cubicle vs the side walls so it appears to hold up well.

It doesn't stop the *@!* shower leaking water behind the tiles, but that's a different problem

-Steve

 

[jocelyn plummer]

I have been using Zinsser paint in the bathroom--like yours, very steamy. It has not given any problems so far in our present home and lasted for 3 years in the previous house where we had to deal with walls that had became very mouldy around the shower enclosure.

 

[Tony.]

Doesn't the the zinnser just seal the wall?

Don't you want to remove the excessive amount of moisture rather than have it run down walls sealed with an impervious paint?

 

[livias]

Move the extractor fan and make it automatic?

 

[88v8]

Really, an automatic fan is a no-brainer. Ours is connected to the shower light. I've been debating a humidity switch , but in the summer the baseline humidity in our cottage is so high - c70% - I'm not sure it would be effective.

I've concluded that sucking air out is only part of the solution. There needs to be a decent air inlet into the room. And the path from air in, to fan, must not bypass the shower cubicle.
I'm going to replace our ineffective Icon with a 2-speed axial fan located right over the cubicle, with inlet air from the lobby outside the shower room.

Ivor

 

[Blackartz]

Wow! Thanks for all the replies!

I think I'll give the clay paint a try as its something I'm intending to use elsewhere in the house anyway, and will definitely rethink the fan situation. Think I'll give the humidity controlled fan a try first. Sounds like fun. I'll also give some thought to throughput of air.

A few extra details:

The room is heated, no radiator leaks.
Its on the first floor.
The external wall could well be part of the problem, its certainly creating similar problems elsewhere as it has two very thick cementitious layers of rendering, with plenty of cracks. The render has been subject to water ingress from above due to poorly maintained gutters, from the side, where the rendered wall meets an un-rendered end of gable, and quite likely rising damp due to paving having been laid up to the wall. The master plan is to remove the render and either apply lime render or external insulation topped by lime render, but its such a huge job, its having to wait for funds.

Thanks again for all the suggestions!