Why is Paint Peeling From My Ceiling?

Why is Paint Peeling From My Ceiling?

LESLIE: Heading to New Jersey where Vicky has a painting question. How can we help you?

VICKY: I have dining room and part of my living room. I had – the ceiling was peeling – painting and peeling.

TOM: OK.

VICKY: As the pieces were spreading wide, opening, coming down, I had a painter come and he scraped all the peeled paint off. And there were parts that were not peeled, so he didn’t touch that. He just peeled the pieces coming down.

Now, he painted. I have no idea if he put a sealant or not. But after that, about a year or so later, I had the same problem. Now this is all coming down, so I have another painter, another $4,000 I put into this, and it’s peeling again.

TOM: Let’s talk about what’s probably happening with your paint. When you have paint that starts to peel like that, it’s essentially sort of delaminating. The paint between the layers of paint, it loses its ability to remain sort of stuck together or loses its bond. And it’s very common for this to happen when you have a lot of coats of paint. Because at some point, you’re really at the point of no return where the paint – you can’t just keep adding more paint, because it will peel. You have to strip off the paint that’s there.

So if you’ve got this problem of paint that repeatedly peels, the next time you work on this project, you have to apply a paint stripper and pull off the old paint. Then you need to prime that space. And I would use an oil-based primer for maximum adhesion. And then you can add the final, finishing touch of a latex ceiling paint over that. But if you keep adding good paint over bad paint, you’re continually going to have this problem where you get peeling and delamination and the process will have to be repeated.

Vicky, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.