Drywall primer suggestions needed...

MT Stringer

We are in the process of repairing our home after Hurricane Ike paid a visit last month. Every room in the house has water damage so we have a lot of drywall and insulation cut/pulled out.

My question is what primer shoud I use to block a few water stains and prime the new sheetrock? The entire house will be painted. Wall colors are basically antique white with no bold colors to cover.

Thanks.
Mike

Nestor_Kelebay

If the drywall is stained because of a flood, then that tells me that whatever is causing that stain is soluble in water.

If you paint over that stained drywall, my guess would be that the stain would bleed through the primer.

So, I'd recommend using an interior alkyd primer over the stained areas. Any other areas, you can just use an inexpensive general purpose latex primer. (Or, use the alkyd primer for everything.)

Why replace water damaged drywall with new drywall? Why not replaced water damaged drywall with a 1/2 inch thick tile backer like Dens-Shield.

That way, if there's ever another flood, there will be less wall damaged to repair, and less drywall to replace.

ratherbefishin'

Sorry to hear that, Mike. The price we pay sometimes for living on the coast, huh? Since Katrina, I've used a lot of oil based Zinsser Cover Stain with good results in situations like yours. It's an all purpose, so no need for two different products.

Nestor, reasonable thought on the backer, but storm surge gets inside the walls, no matter what they're covered with, and in this climate you'd have a serious mold problem in a matter of days. Walls have to be gutted (if the surge didn't already do that) and dried out before anything else can be done.

MT Stringer

Thanks for the replies. It wasn't rising water that caused the damge. It was from shingles and tar paper being blown off the roof. So we have parts of the ceiling and upper parts of most walls in the hose torn out. We are fortunate to live high enough that the storm surge wasn't a factor.

I'll check into the Zinsser Cover Stain.
Thanks again.
Mike

Matthewt1970

Yep, the Zinsser Cover Stain is good stuff. Don't let anyone try and sell you the latex version. While the latex version is good for drwall, it will really fail when it comes to water stains.