Nicotine stains and painting

[leej90]

Hi all

I've been through some of the threats on here and the advise it all quite old noe, wondering if there is any more updates.

I'm buying a house where the previous owner was a heavy smoker. The walls and ceilings are thick with the nicotine tar and staining and there is a strong smell in there.

I plan to tackle the stained walls and ceilings based from the previous threads:

1. Wash down the walls with TSP to remove as much grease as possible.
2. Use thinned down oil based undercoat
3. Use water based emulsion

My concern being....

Is it possible to paint over oil based undercoat with water based emulsion? Or is the fact one is an undercoat making it ok.

Can I use this method on any currently gloss woodwork?

Will the cleaning and painting remove the odor?

Thanks in advanced

 

[Old Salt]

Sugar soap (TSP) should remove most of the staining but it may take a couple of washes. I would apply the paint as per manufacturers instructions.
Walls emulsion, woodwork undercoat and then gloss/satin of your choice.

Most of any odour should be in any soft furnishings, carpets, curtains etc. You could give them a good shampoo/wash or replace them and that should do the job.

It may be worth giving everything a quick sanding before painting which should help and a couple of coats depending on any colour change or remaining staining.

Use decent quality paint.

 

[leej90]

Sugar soap (TSP) should remove most of the staining but it may take a couple of washes. I would apply the paint as per manufacturers instructions.
Walls emulsion, woodwork undercoat and then gloss/satin of your choice.

Most of any odour should be in any soft furnishings, carpets, curtains etc. You could give them a good shampoo/wash or replace them and that should do the job.

It may be worth giving everything a quick sanding before painting which should help and a couple of coats depending on any colour change or remaining staining.

Use decent quality paint.

Thanks

All that I have read so far is stating the stain will come straight through the emulsion and that's the reason for the undercoat. What brand paint would you recommend?

 

[opps]

Nicotine will leech through standard emulsion. There are specialist emulsions that can deal with it, eg.

» How to paint over nicotine stains

www.zinsseruk.com

Oil based undercoat will work but with some caveats- to begin with, it will stink. I have painted walls with oil based paints in the past (oil based eggshell and oil based dead flat paint). I had to wear a charcoal mask because of the smell (and as a professional decorator, I am used to the smell of oil based paints), that said, you even absorb the solvents through your eyes and skin.

If you try to apply emulsion over OB U/C too soon, you risk getting "fish eyes" in the emulsion. They are pools/craters in the paint finish caused by the emulsion pushing itself away from the solvents being being released by the OB U/C. Some emulsions can be a real mare- Farrow and Ball paints being an example- they can fish eye a week after being painted over oil based paints, Dulux Trade is normally fine after a couple of days.

Other than that, you will find that the emulsion takes a lot longer to dry- you won't be able to recoat it 4 hours later, you may have to wait until the next day. If the room is subject to a lot of moisture, there is an outside/remote chance that the emulsion will craze.

I would be inclined to follow @Old Salt 's advice and use sugar soap, a number of times, as a starting point. Washing ceilings is really hard work though.

 

[Old Salt]

Thanks

All that I have read so far is stating the stain will come straight through the emulsion and that's the reason for the undercoat. What brand paint would you recommend?

Personally I use Crown, recommended to me by my uncle years ago. The formulation may have changed but I believe it holds its colour well.

 

[opps]

Personally I use Crown, recommended to me by my uncle years ago. The formulation may have changed but I believe it holds its colour well.

I used Crown Trade emulsion about 3 years ago. I purchased four 5L tins from the Crown Trade Centre in South Ealing. I had to strain every chuffing tin. As I rolled the walls with the mustard coloured emulsion, I kept getting white spots in the finish. I was constantly having to get the step ladder to climb up and wipe off the thick white paint spots.

I can only imagine that the paint base colour in the plastic tins starts to thicken at the top as the air gets in and doesn't break up properly when the tins are shaken.

I did mention it to the staff at the store. They just shrugged. I won't be in a hurry to use Crown Trade again. White dots aside, the emulsion performed ok, I was painting over new lining paper though.

 

[leej90]

Thanks for all the replies!
I'm so confused now about what to do!
Would cleaning and then lining the walls with paper do the job or would the stains come through the paper?

 

[opps]

Thanks for all the replies!
I'm so confused now about what to do!
Would cleaning and then lining the walls with paper do the job or would the stains come through the paper?

Sorry. I wasn't suggesting that you go to the trouble of lining the walls. A thorough wash should suffice, but ceilings are pain to wash.

I have never lined over nicotine stained walls. I cannot definitively say if it will be an issue though. That said, I would still want to remove the nicotine, old water stains can leak through wall paper adhesive (given that it is waterbased).

 

[leej90]

Ok sorry for the delay in replying. Yesterday I visited a couple of decorating centers, I was told to use sugar soap first, then the lightly stained areas use johnstons stain away. For the heavy stained areas use zinsser cover stain.

Thoughts??

 

[Old Salt]

Get on and do it.