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Painting bricks- PVA first?
James - 21/10/11 at 09:51 AM

I'm painting the interior walls of my borrowed garage to try and turn it into slightly less the black hole of Calcutta and more somewhere I want to spend time and get the car back on the road.

So far, the 6x2m of wall I've painted have taken about 6 hours and used more than half a bucket of Wickes paint that Wickes claim will do 45-55square metres of wall!

The walls are pretty secure (I even brushed all the cobwebs and woodlice off!) and so I didn't PVA or mist-coat first.

Was not PVA-ing a big fail and the reason I'm using so much paint? Or Wickes just lying?

If I PVA first (I want to use PVA not special 'sealer' as it's cheap) then what mix? I've had issues with paint not going on to PVA well in the past. Is this down to the PVA not being watered down enough? Do I want PVA:Water 1:1 or more like 1:10?


Thanks!

James

P.S. Oh, and the bloody things got mice too! Never seem them there before... if the wiring's gone in the car it's gonna be mousepocalypse time!!!


T66 - 21/10/11 at 10:04 AM

Painted mine with Dulux , no pva .


Took a bit of coverage mixed some crappy emulsion with Dulux I had left over, and slapped it on.



Suppose it depends on what bricks your painting and how porous they are, mine didnt seem too bad.



Still took me three days to cover it all...




mcerd1 - 21/10/11 at 10:09 AM

my old shed had single brick walls that the damp uesd to come through a bit (80+ years old)

I tried white emulssion the first time but it took 3 coats and within a month it was going yellow were the damp was

so the next wall I mixed the PVA 10:1 with the emulsion (as per Fozzie's instructions) and did a couple of quick coats strait on to the wall, you might only need one good coat...
mines been fine ever since

that was with the cheapest nastiest white emulsion I could find (B&Q own value brand in the sale for £5 for 10L )

[Edited on 21/10/2011 by mcerd1]


tony-devon - 21/10/11 at 10:15 AM

just painted the walls here, built a new armoury, so its engineering blocks, they soak it up, but I used a trade paint from screwfix, just watered it down about 25% water for the first coat, worked it will into the blocks etc with the brush, day or so later went over it again with undiluted paint, all seems ok, but did keep having lots of lil dark spots appear where the bubbles in the paint had burst or go and left holes through to the blocks.


britishtrident - 21/10/11 at 10:16 AM

In my experience if you don't add PVA emulsion tends to peel after 5 years or so however from my experience just go straight for Sandtex type paint although more expensive per litre than emulsion it works out cheaper.

[Edited on 21/10/11 by britishtrident]


James - 21/10/11 at 10:42 AM

Ah, I hadn't even thought of mixing the PVA with the paint.

I meant doing a PVA coat first to maybe 'seal' the pores somewhat and then paint pure paint over that once dry.

Have I got the wrong end of the stick?

Cheers,
James


MikeR - 21/10/11 at 11:27 AM

I used masonary paint. Really complicated procedure ..... inserted brush into tub, push brush onto wall.

10 years later and the paint is still on the wall and nice and white.

Its masonary paint for a reason and i rated my time higher than the additional cost (*) of extra coats of paint / pva glue etc.



(*) if you know me you'll realise this is one of the very few times I've done this.


mcerd1 - 21/10/11 at 11:33 AM

quote:
Originally posted by James
Ah, I hadn't even thought of mixing the PVA with the paint.

I meant doing a PVA coat first to maybe 'seal' the pores somewhat and then paint pure paint over that once dry.

Have I got the wrong end of the stick?

Cheers,
James


you can do that too, but I found it easier to mix it with the paint (I tried PVA first aswell)

with my bargan bin paint and PVA it worked out cheaper than the massonary paint (which I suspect is paint and PVA mixed anyway)


Confused but excited. - 21/10/11 at 07:35 PM

If you are painting blocks as opposed to brick, a dodge an old time painter told me, was to give them a coat of whitewash (really cheap) to fill all the little holes first, then emulsion over that. Your paint goes much further.


snakebelly - 21/10/11 at 07:55 PM

just painted the floor and walls at our unit, world war II era so vv old, concrete flaky, bricks dusty. Mixed a thin pva solution and used a garden weed killer sprayer to apply it to waals and floor, left i for a few days and the paint took fine and seems to be staying put with no sign of flaking o damp, only applied one coat but we did use floor paint on both the floor and the walls