[Improvised]

Hi All,

I'm getting ready to start taping a bunch of patches in my kitchen but before I get started I'm wondering if I need to do more about the flaking paint. It seems some genius previous owner took acrylic over oil. I've sanded all the walls but I didn't scrape off all of the pealing paint. I'm wondering if this will be an issue if I plan to do the following:

1. Tape all my patches
2. Prime with Kilz (oil)
3. Texture the walls (orange peel)
4. Prime again! (maybe 100% acrylic this time)
5. And then paint

Will that work or do I need to scrape all the paint off? I'd like to stay away from that since it's a pain in the butt.

Thanks for your thoughts

 

[Leah Frances]

You say you have acrylic over oil. How do you know?

You say you sanded the whole wall but didn't scrape? Failing to remove any loose material before you sand leads to a waste of sand paper. How is that you sanded the entire wall but did not remove the flaking paint?

Do you mean alligatoring paint?

Paint flakes because the bond between the paint and the substrate fails causing the paint to separate 'in flakes' from the substrate.

There are a plethora of reasons that this occurs.

If you do not address the reason; anything you do on top of flaking paint is doomed to eventual failure. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will fail.

Mostly you address the problem by removing ALL flaking paint. And eliminating any underlying problems (moisture comes to mind).

If you don't do it right all your hard work will go to waste.

 

[Improvised]

Thanks Leah. To answer your questions:

You say you have acrylic over oil. How do you know?

The top layer rubs off with alcohol, the sub-layer does not. That's all I know.

You say you sanded the whole wall but didn't scrape? Failing to remove any loose material before you sand leads to a waste of sand paper. How is that you sanded the entire wall but did not remove the flaking paint?

I scraped off the loose paint first and then sanded all the walls. Where I was having trouble scraping (I took a box cutter blade to the walls) I would try to sand down to the existing texture. The problem is that some small flakes are still left behind (though they're bonded to the wall) and going back to scrape all of them is no fun. At this point, everything that could very easily be scraped off is gone. It's the tough to scrape off stuff I'm wondering about. Oh, and the ceiling. However, with the ceiling there is no visible peeling. Also, no paint peeled off while I was sanding it. On the tough parts I have to gouge my blade in to get anything off, though it will eventually strip off "clean" while the sub-layer stays and seems to be well adhered.

Do you mean alligatoring paint?

I'm not sure. It's just peeling off in various places; in other areas it's bonded to the sub-layer but I can eventually scrape it off.

Mostly you address the problem by removing ALL flaking paint. And eliminating any underlying problems (moisture comes to mind).

I don't think it's moisture because the problem is pretty consistent throughout the kitchen. Also, the sub-layer, witch I'm pretty sure is oil based, is very well adhered to the walls. Though I could be wrong.

 

[Leah Frances]

Good answers. I understand your conundrum now. I've spent WAY too many hours with this sort of problem. I've seen it referred to as alligator.

IMHO, you will get a more stable and long lasting result if you scrape. But you can also fill as you described.