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Paint Oder/High VOC help!

2K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  oh'mike 
#1 ·
I could use some help here. Four months ago I purchased a new house and painted my daugher's room using Valspar Signature paint, the room still smells bad. While painting the room I eneded up with a bad lung infection the doctors believed was becuase of the paint fumes. For the first month after painting I left windows open and fans on in the room to air it out. I have tried just about every home remedy to get rid of smell, cut up onions, lemons, oranges, bowls of vinegar, vanilla, washed walls with water/baking soda, using a HEPA filter and nothing works.

My daughter, now 7 months old just spent a week in the hospital with a respritory infection, not sure if was related to the paint or not. But we have yet to move her into her room because of the smell. The other day we hired a home inspector to do an air qaulity test and it came back with elevated levels of VOC 2100 ng/L that is unsafe, with the major polutant being Paint. My question now is what do I do? Will painting over the walls with a no-VOC paint cover up any VOCs/oder from the previous paint?
 
#4 ·
Let me say up front I am not an expert on this, but I don't think I have ever heard of VOC levels that high in water based paint. In fact I don't think the old oil paints were that high. And it seems like after 4 months they certainly should have dissipated a lot. Now for your question I don't know if just painting over it will solve the problem, it seems like it should but I'm not sure. If you do, use something like Mythic paint whice has 0 VOCs. Maybe Ric knows paint can help us on this one.
 
#2 · (Edited)
Are you a clean person? Does your husband wear suits to work? Did you know your weekly dry cleaning contains more VOCs capable of hurting your daughter than paint?

Did you buy carpeting and furniture? Large screen TV? They are hurting her more than paint too.

Have you used anything like an Orange or pine cleaner to make the place clean? Was your home treated with pesticides?

Again, more VOCs than paint.

You should take respiratory illness seriously. I have had what was diagnosed as "Environmenatl Pneumonia" but assure you it did not come from smelling paint fumes.

Usually concentrations you describe are found in urine tests. Morphine and codeine hit 2,000 per millliliter. I hardly think you are facing anything toxic at that titration in a liter. Not saying you should not take this seriously tough. I just don't think paint is your problem.

I don't think you could drink a gallon of even horrible box store Valspar and get to 2,100 in a urine test. Might Mommy be doing a bit of hydrocordone or the Rush Limbaugh mix?
 
#3 ·
The home inspector and the lab that conducted the air quality test both agree that the high VOC's are indeed from the paint. Its the only room in the house that is bad and it has been empty since we moved in and painted it. The report broke down the level of VOCs from cleaning products, medicines, fragrances, personal care products etc... and everything was at normal levels except for the paint which was very high.
 
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