I am painting a house that has drywall and the paper on the drywall keeps rippling, blistering, puckering and so on. What can I do to stop this? I’m using a good quality paint (Benjamin Moore) and am rolling it on. My guess is that the house was built in the 60’s. The guy I work for is ready to rip out the old drywall and start over (on one wall of the half bath where this is happening the most). This seems rather extreme, but mudding over the old drywall just irons out the wrinkles while pressing with the knife–as soon as you let up, the wrinkles pop back up. I’ve had this happen once before in a house where the original coat of paint was sprayed on and in one spot a blister formed when I rolled my paint on. Fortunately, that time the blister went away when the paint dried. I’m beginning to hate drywall.
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Has the face paper been pulled of stripping wall paper???
If that is so what I've found that works to stop this, and youv'e sort of already
answered your own question, is to prime with a latex primer. I just got done
repairing something similiar and when the paint was wet it bubbled but when it dried it laid flat(fo figure).
Yeah, I did strip the walls of wallpaper and some of the wallpaper was really stuck--some did pull off the drywall paper surface, but that isn't the only place that's having problems. I wanted to prime it, but the guy I work for just wanted me to start right in with the final coat. Now I know. We'll (I'll) try priming on Monday. Thanks.
Let us know how it works out
I did chicken out and used oil-based primer (instead of latex) and it seems to have worked--it hasn't dried fully yet, but the paper is still flat. Thanks for your help.
One thing about oil, that I've found out the hard way, is that on new sheet rock it
will raise "hairs" on the face paper ,so that is one reason I quit using it(wrong primer
for sheetrock). But on already painted walls it will blister, and I don't know why. I've
found this out on my house when I sprayed everything with kilz(trim,walls). There
are spots on the sheetrock were the paint is blistering. It's not doing it everywhere,
just in the bathroom and a wall where a heat duct runs down between the studs.
So that is the reason that I only use latex on sheetrock.
Thanks for the info. I'll keep my fingers crossed--so far there are no blisters. The thing I liked about oil-based is it didn't wet the drywall or its paper and I think that was part of the problem with the latex paint (not primer). I also read on a can of PVA primer that it has the advantage of not raising whiskers on new drywall (the paper surface) and almost bought it. Maybe that would work for you on new drywall. Fortunately, this drywall is old and has been painted. I don't think the lady sized the walls before papering, because I had real problems getting the wallpaper off. I used a spray on enzyme glue dissolver, figuring it would do less damage to the walls than a steamer, but still I tore the drywall paper off in a couple spots (and the enzyme remover also raised blisters). The woman insisted she used prepasted, strippable wallpaper, but I have never had so much trouble removing wallpaper! On an upstairs bedroom I didn't even wet the wallpaper to remove it, it just peeled off in full sheets! (Unfortunately there, she had her son "help" me by using a "tiger claw" and he pressed so hard he left little but deep pinpricks all over and I had to skim coat a layer of mud to hide them. )I was hoping this in the dining room would strip off like the paper had upstairs, but no such luck. Now I know why the guy I work for refuses to do or remove wallpaper! I did find that using "dragon skin" (steel "sandpaper) really worked well when rubbed over the surface to rough it up to allow the stripper to penetrate the wallpaper to reach the glue.
If you decide to use primer, you may want to use an oil-based primer. Water-born primers (latex) will probably cause more wrinkles than oil-based primers. Just try both types on a piece of paper and see what happens.
I've used Benjamin Moore Fresh Start oil-based primer on wallpaper with good luck.
-Don
I hate oil based paint, so when ever I can get away with it I'll use latex,
The latex will sometimes cause the paper to wrinkle, but I've found that after
it dries every thing seem to have laid back down.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it, your mileage may vary.