[api11296]

I have been on the DIY and Contractor website trying to get some feeback about a paint problem I have. Please look at these pictures and let me know what you think.

Picture one is of a ceiling that is flashing shiny flat shiny flat. This entire three story custom home looks like this through out. It was primed with BEHR Premium Select PVA primer and the primer was tinted to the wall color SW Camel Back. It sat for one day and was then painted with BEHR K-200 (Contractor line of paint, a little flatter than K-100.) The resulting finish dried like this. When wet it looks fine and then starts drying in some areas and not others. Where it dried first it is flat and fine, where it dried later it is shinier.

We have done some testing: Sprayed on the ceiling in the picture:
Primer K-10
BEHR K-200
SW
Prep Coat
BEHR K-200
SW
BEHR K-200

Nothing changed it.

On the second floor ceiling we:
Primer
BEHR
BEHR and backroll
BEHR and backroll
BEHR and no backroll
KILZ 2
SW
BEHR

Same results, even through the KILZ

This house was sprayed by myself and my lead spray man. We used two different rigs and have tested with various methods, tips, and preasures. Both of us keep coming up with the same result.

Although I am new to this forum, I am not new to painting. I have over 25 years of experience, 15 of which I owned my own Paint Company. This is not the result of my spray equipment, technique, or uneven drywall. The shadows you see in the pictures are not shadows they are the flat areas that dried first. The walls are blotchy and with shiny to flat stripes that go from top to bottom.

I have more pictures and some short video clips that show this alot better.

 

[timhag]

BEHR is your problem, search this site, do a google on it. Behr is sh*t paint.

 

[Roadog]

Behr and Kilz...? If you would have bought a quality paint, I think you would have saved a couple days man hours and actually saved money! Painting crap on top of crap equals crap!

 

[vermontpainter]

Its hard to tell from the pictures, but as I sight that ceiling down, I think I see the drywall joints every four feet...makes me wonder if the mud joints were sanded flush enough and if the primer did a proper seal job. Those big open ceilings showered by natural light are difficult to do perfectly even with the best of products. You mentioned spraying, did you backroll? If not, sometimes that contributes to a cloudy appearance.

 

[HomeGuardPaints]

Your problem is........

Unfortunately I shop there too, sometimes, but not for paint.

Well once for the Behr Premium Plus ultra.--- it was actually good , but their interior paint sucks

 

[api11296]

Understand that I am a Masco owned company and that my paint department is using BEHR becasue of that fact. We have our own tint machine and shakers and our paint comes directly from BEHR.

I understand that there have been issues with BEHR. I have never had this problem before with any other type of paint. I have read all about it on this website and being that so many of you have had issues with it I was wondering if anyone has had this particular problem and if so what you did to fix it.

Yes, we tried backrolling. It made it worse and the contractor made us stop because it is a smooth mexican hand trowl texture and the nap of the roller leaves a slight texture that was taking away from the effect that they are trying to achieve, as are the numerous coats of paint we are applying.

I have worked behind this drywaller for years with few problems and the walls are not uneven. What you can't see in the pictures is that what appears to be the jointsare lines range from 8 to 12 inches apart and vary with no real pattern and that a straight edge has been applied to the walls to make sure that's not the problem.

Also this does not tell me why it is blotchy, even when back rolled.

If you have had this problem, what did you do to fix it?

 

[Pete's Painting]

Your problem will not go away unless you change paint. You could put 10 layers of Behr paint on there and it will still look like it needs another coat.
The ceiling paint looks like it has a shine to it. If you absolutely need to use Behr, use their flat paints.

 

[CApainter]

I like Pete's idea of the flat paint to hide the highs and lows.

Is it possible to retexture ceiling?

Has anyone heard of applying a flat paint prior to texturing, as a means of controlling equal absorption of texture?

 

[alpinecrick]

Its hard to tell from the pictures, but as I sight that ceiling down, I think I see the drywall joints every four feet...makes me wonder if the mud joints were sanded flush enough and if the primer did a proper seal job. Those big open ceilings showered by natural light are difficult to do perfectly even with the best of products. You mentioned spraying, did you backroll? If not, sometimes that contributes to a cloudy appearance.

Sure looks like joints to me also. Behr paint doesn't help matters.

One of the most critical surfaces to paint are interior drywall smooth/slick walls and ceilings--and the higher sheens will show every imperfection.

At this point, one option to try is buy regular flat paint--the cheap heavy body stuff (even Home Depot's Glidden Speedcoat is good for this:whistling2: ), and with no thinning, running a .017 or .019 tip, spray a heavy coat as a primer. Then see if you can convince the homeowner to use an eggshell or flat finish coat.


Casey

 

[alpinecrick]

I like Pete's idea of the flat paint to hide the highs and lows.

Is it possible to retexture ceiling?

Has anyone heard of applying a flat paint prior to texturing, as a means of controlling equal absorption of texture?

That's exactly why I recommend flat paint. Another trick I learned (from a drywaller) is to throw a gallon of drywall mud into a 5 ga of flat paint.

Good friend of mine is a drywall contractor who specializes in slickwall--I mean REALLY slick, slickwall.

Although I don't do much residential/commercial stuff these days, sometimes he hires me on big jobs to use my big airless. We dump 3/4 box of mud into about 2 1/2 gallons of cheap, heavy bodied flat paint, and spray it on. Then he touches up any small imperfections and lightly sands the walls--makes for a very smooth surface with equal absorption throughout.



Casey

 

[alpinecrick]

I have worked behind this drywaller for years with few problems and the walls are not uneven. What you can't see in the pictures is that what appears to be the jointsare lines range from 8 to 12 inches apart and vary with no real pattern and that a straight edge has been applied to the walls to make sure that's not the problem.

Are you by perchance getting spray tails?


Casey

 

[vermontpainter]

I have always been under the impression that flat on ceilings is the best practice, and thought it was pretty standard procedure for pro painters. Is that a safe assumption?

 

[Roadog]

I have always been under the impression that flat on ceilings is the best practice, and thought it was pretty standard procedure for pro painters. Is that a safe assumption?

Thats how I feel. Was doing a house in Maine last summer and the owner had another painter do the ceilings in CA. Matte. 3 coats...looked like crap. His work looked good and I thought he left out primer (new const.) so I scuff sanded, cleaned and put another coat. Looked like crap. These were not white but colors (1/4 tints) so I matched it in flat, put it on....it was a beautiful thing! Owner happy. Part of this issue was Lots of windows and on the ocean. Lots of light hitting the ceiling.
I go to egg or satin in a bath.

 

[bikerboy]

Let's try some logic:

IF you have used Behr paint AND not have had this problem before, then there is another variable.

DID the drywall people change mud, use uncontaminated water, or hang drywall that had not been exposed to elements or chemicals lying in the back of the truck?

DID you clean your spray rig thoroughly BEFORE you sprayed the current coats?

DID you know that Behr states you need to "spot prime" patched areas first, followed by a complete primer coat, (only primer I know that needs to be primed BEFORE primeing) in essence applying two coats of primer BEFORE you apply you first finnish coat?

DID you know that the primer should NOT have more than 3 oz of colorant added to it?

http://www.behr.com/behrx/act/view/products_detail?prodGroupId=30&catName=Primers&catId=20

 

[vermontpainter]

The quality of natural light on ceilings, especially large ceilings showered by lots of glass, is pretty amazing. Whenever we do the same color and finish on ceilings and walls (which is rare), it is quite an optical illusion how the ceiling looks so different from the walls.

On ceilings painters need all the help we can get visually and in terms of hide, so flat gets the call 95% of the time with us. As Roadog mentions, there are certain bathroom applications that call for a sheen, and they are usually small enough spaces with not much natural light so they look ok.

 

[AALory]

Flat for ceilings is standard. This is especially true for open, expansive ceilings like those in the pictures. That much uninterupted drywall is bound to have a number of subtle imperfections.

 

[vermontpainter]

Bikerboy raises an excellent point. There are some variables involved, and to me the largest one is the "smooth mexican hand troweled texture" that was described. We do just enough hand troweled plaster applications in decorative finishes to know that this application creates some rather unpredicatable rates of absorption in primers, topcoats, sealers, glazes or whatever. We have had dead flat varnish get weirded out over hand troweled/polished surfaces.

In order to solve this mystery, we would need more information about what the product was that they troweled on, how much cure time it was given, how smooth it was, and how much variation in its texture. However, the paint product choice in this case is certainly questionable and, even in the best of scenarios, would not be the ideal choice.

 

[painttofish]

I would spray and backroll with an 18" roller and pro mar 400 flat. If it still does that I think you have to look at the plaster/texture. Tell the GC that backrolling is necessary unless he wants it to look like it does.

 

[api11296]

Okay,

The walls through out are painted with FLAT BEHR K-200 Contactor series, it is flatter than their shiner K-100 Flat.

Yes, I know all about the colorant, how much you can add ect. and followed this when tinting the primer. It does not take as much colorant to tint the primer as it does to tint their Pastel Base Paint.

Prep Coat is drywall mud mixed with paint and is basically what was suggested by adding drywall mud to paint, except it comes pre made from a manufature. I did spray the ceiling you see in this picture with Prep Coat and it did not fix the problem.

My rigs are cleaned after every single paint is put through them. First the paint is removed and the machine rinsed with one full five of water and then a new full five of water or until CLEAR CLEAN WATER FLOWS CONSTANTLY THROUGH THE GUN.

The hand texture is pure dry wall mud, layers and layers of drywall mud over the sheetrock. The water used to mix the mud is drinkable water and runs from the same water supply used for surrounding occupied houses.

The drywall was delivered to the job from the warehouse and stored inside just prior to hanging. It was uncontaminated and clean when hung.

There were no patches in this house as it had been completely had trowled to achieve a Spanish style texture. I throughly examined the drywall prior to priming myself.

The walls are pretty smooth with occasional indentations or dips. 4 sq. ft. may have three of these indentations. They run about 3 to four inches long and 1/2 inch to 1 inch wide. The texture effect is amazing looking and is exactly like the Contractors house I painted 3 years prior behind the same drywaller with Sherwin Williams Paint.

The drywall sat for two weeks finished prior to Priming.

We used Sherwin Williams Southwest Builders Custom Flat on this ceiling and it still looked like this.

The mud is manufactured by MAGNIUM and a representative from Magnium took a box of mud off the job to be tested.

SO TO CLAIRIFY:
DAY 1
Primed with BEHR PVA Primer tinted as close to the wall color as possible with out using too much tint.
Day 2
Painted with BEHR's Flattest Paint all ceilings and walls with the exception of Wet Area's which are eggshell.
Day 3
Came in with SW Southwest Builders Custom FLat (Sherwin WIlliams Flattest Paint)
Day 4
Prep Coated the entire ceiling and one short wall.
Day 5
Re-painted over Prep Coat after sanding the walls.
Day 6
Sunday - took the day off!
Day 7
Re-painted a different ceiling with KILZ
Day 8
Painted over KILZ with Sherwin Williams Promar 400 FLAT and BACK ROLLED
Day 9
Back to origional ceiling and new ceiling re-painted all with BEHR
Day 10
Contractor wanted his house back, so we left it like it sits and it looks like CRAP. Will go back after all trades and try to fix it. We will be brushing and rolling. So if you can think of something we have not tried, please advise.

We were in close contact with BEHR during our testing phases and we did everything they suggested as far as tips, backrolling, preasures, even listened to them telling us how to spray.

Their suggestions did not fix the problem and they are testing the paint and the primer now.

It is good to know that by your suggestions, most of which I have already tried, at least I did the right things so far. There are cabinets, beams, bath, tile, floors, and rock going into this house right now. I seriously doubt that the contractor is going to allow new drywall to be put up against all of these things. He is thinking that once he gets the beams on the ceilings and all of his dark wood in that it will "HIDE" this problem.

I am going to need a painting solution and not a dry wall solution.

 

[vermontpainter]

I hope that I am sensing your frustration with the situation, and not with those of us who are trying to help you.

The obvious painting solution would be to pole sand the ceiling to lose the roller texture you have introduced and repaint with, say, Sherwin Williams or Ben Moore flat. Suggest that they get some window treatments to tone down the shower of natural light on the ceiling.