Peeling paint

Lisalovespainting

I have been using Behr ultra high-gloss white paint to do interior trim. (yes, I know... but I bought a bunch of it before I read everyone's opinions). On the interior doors, which are NOT hollow-core but are the type you buy at Home Depot that have, as I understand it, panels that are inserted into the door frames at the factory, I just noticed today to my horror that after about 5 months the paint is peeling (like bubbling) in the corners of these panels and had to be scraped, as if the panels have expanded and contracted over time. The rest of the paint has adhered, but this one area is a problem on all the doors.

This property is a rental, so I'm not willing to spend a lot of money on paint for it. I would like to know if there is something besides primer that I should be putting down which would stop this from happening - caulking? - and whether it's something I'm doing when I'm painting that causes this, BESIDES using cheap paint! Thanks in advance.

joewho

check really well to see if anything like glue or other foriegn material is in the corners. The panels may be floating, but the stiles and rails should be glued, when compressed the glue may have leaked out of the corners.

They may well have expanded and contracted. Did you paint all the outside edges of the doors, including the top and bottom?

slickshift

The panels probably were expanding and contracting
They are supposed to, if they are the loose panel kind we so often find here in New England
(so they don't crack with the humidity changes of summer's open doors and winter's wood stoves)

Were they already painted when you painted them?
Or were they new/raw/stained?

Lisalovespainting

They were raw when I started - I primed them first and then put 2 coats of gloss on. The rest of the paint that is not in the panels looks good. I'll check to see if there is any glue that might have escaped out of the corners, but as I recall, they look raw still after the paint is scraped off completely.

I did not paint the inside and outside of the doors, but I did varnish them all.

Would caulking maybe take care of the problem for next time?

slickshift

Well, the thing is, they are not supposed to be caulked
As I described, they are supposed to expand and contract

Is it both sides of the doors?
And is it all the doors?

joewho

If there is no glue, and if the panels are expanding, then they are expanding into the slot where it sits, pushing the paint off.
In this case, caulk would just make matters worse. What kind of primer did you use?
It almost sounds like the paint is too thick.

Lisalovespainting

Yes, it's both side of the doors, and both doors. I also noticed that it happened on the corners of the panels of the closet doors we bought too; the ones with slats on top and panels below. I used Behr primer quite a few weeks before I put on the finish coats. All the layers came up at once.

maybe I'll just make sure the panels are extra clean, and start all over again, and hope it doesn't happen again!

slickshift

That would be my suggestion
Scrape off any loose stuff, sand to feather
Prime any bare wood (probably end up being the whole panel to make it look good)

I'd strongly suggest using a better quality primer, such as Ben Moore's Fresh Start, Sherwin Williams Prep Rite, or Zinsser's 1-2-3
And a better quality paint, the best quality (water-based) finish for a door being something like Ben Moore's Waterborne Impervo enamel, or Sherwin Williams' Waterborne Pro Classic