Painting Problems To Avoid When You’re Going The DIY Route

Published on April 10, 2022
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Painting a wall or a room yourself is certainly a doable project to tackle. While it is rather straightforward, there are some pitfalls you should know about ahead of time before getting started. There’s nothing worse than finishing up a paint job only to realize that something has gone wrong. Here are some common problems to try to avoid before you start painting.

Painting Wall

Painting Wall

Peeling

Peeling paint happens both on interior and exterior walls and can happen due to moisture, high humidity, poor caulking, clogged gutters, or a leaky roof. Improve your ventilation with wall vents and exhaust fans, fix crumbling caulking, loose shingles, and full gutters. Then remove the peeling paint, sand, clean, prime, and repaint.

Peeling 

Peeling

Cracks, Flakes, Clumps

Cracking, flaking, and clumping can happen across all surfaces and can be caused by insufficient surface prep. To repair, you can remove the cracked paint, sand, clean, prime, and the repaint the problem areas.

Cracks, Flakes, Clumps

Cracks, Flakes, Clumps

Bubbling

Bubbling in paint happens due to heat and moisture. For painted surfaces that are in direct sunlight or newly dried latex paint that is exposed to rain, dew, and high humidity, you might start to notice bubbling and blistering. Burst the bubble to see what the source of the issue it. If it’s moisture, make sure you get the source of the problem fixed then remove the paint, smooth, clean, prime, and repaint.

Bubbling

Bubbling

Alligatoring

Alligatoring is the pattern that can be seen that looks like alligator skin that can start out as wrinkling and turn into rectangular cracks. This happens when the paint goes through weather fluctuations and tends to happen more with oil-based paints. To fix, you can scrape, sand, chemically remove, or use a heat gun. After you’re done removing it, rinse and let it completely dry. Then prime, wait to dry, and repaint.

West

West

Chalking

Chalking is what happens when you see a fine, white powder that forms on painted walls, which happens in sunny and arid climates. Usually this happens when exposed to weather changes. You can remove this completely by treating with TSP solution and then rinsing. Wait until it is fully dry and then repaint with high-quality paint that’s meant for exteriors.

Chalking

Chalking

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