This paint stinks!!!! General decorating topics, questions and answers. find help, tips and advice on completing your decorating projects

[lindylu]

£40 for one tin?! Geez, I will need lots, my heart is sinking. Plus the cost of two coats of paint on all the walls and ceilings throughout most of the house. Plus labour costs. No smell today as I haven't opened the windows, but it is a beautiful day and I am just about to open them. Gas masks at the ready :(

Good luck. Out of curiosity, are you a window opener? I know people that never open windows from one year to the next, but mine are usually open throughout the house from morning until evening.

[Tubularowl]

Hi,
Yes I am a window opener and like others it did make it worse although it was pretty disgusting anyway. So now I have applied one coat of BIN over the whole hallway and stairs. It's taken one and a half tins at £40 a tin. I got 3 in case I need two coats. As of today the smell has 100% gone even when the windows are open. It's fresh as a daisy for the first time in 12 weeks. The thing now is will it last. It is not my intention to overpaint the BIN as the colour is almost the same as the paint and I don't want anything else on the walls until this filth is dead.

[Rodgydodge]

I'm so glad I found this thread! I thought I was going crazy. I'm also having a problem with Valspar paint. I decorated the hall stairs and landing in February i didnt smell anything for a few weeks after. For the last month I've been blaming my cat. I've spent the last 4 weeks trying to find where she'd peed. I've scrubbed till my hands are sore, I've steam cleaned the floors and walls (they began to get worse) and scrubbed carpets. Last weekend I was ready for rehoming the cat as I couldn't take any more. I've been so distressed. The other night after cleaning the stair carpet yet again I'd said to my husband could it be the paint? I got a chair and sniffed the wall above human head height only to get a wife of the awful cat wee smell. When all the doors and windows are shut (yes I'm a window opener too) like when we go to bed come morning I can't smell it. But as the day goes on it gets progressively worse. I have emailed b&q as well as Valspar they have yet to come back to me. Could I be so bold Tubularowl and ask what is this 'BIN' ? I'm desperate to get rid of the smell as my cat does think another cats been in the house and she's really freaked out over it.
Regards
Rodgydodge

[Tubularowl]

BIN is a primer/sealer. It is very runny, eyewateringly chemically smelly to apply with a roller, high in VOC,s BUT it seals in the stench. I've been doing a bit of research into this. The stench is caused by a couple of strains of bacteria. This explains why some people get dead animals, cat pee, ammonia, gas...... It's all the same though and it won't go away on its own. The bacteria need 3 things to survive. Oxygen, moisture and your wall. To kill it you need to deprive it of one of them. The only thing you can practically do is cut off the oxygen. If you use bleach or disinfectant it will injure it for a few days but it will always come back and you will have spread it around by wiping it all over your wall with a cloth. The moisture comes with humidity. BIN puts a physical coating on and seals your wall, deprives it of oxygen and kills it. It still takes 14 days to die though after application.
http://www.zinsseruk.com/product/b-i-n/
You can get it in B and Q or screw fix.

Interesting you have the same problem with Valspar as us. cat pee, dead animals, it's all the same just a different bacteria strain due to low VOC in the paint to start with. The problem is the paint without a doubt. Some of mine was painted on old and some on new plaster but it still stunk the same. Valspar were quick to send me a voucher and I will be buying their paint again but I will be looking for an additive to add to the paint to massively raise its bacterial killing properties. 100% industrial alcohol might be a good starting point.

It's a bit like buying weed killer these days. Most of it has been made that safe to humans it doesn't actually work anymore. Same with paint. Unless you are lucky it's not really fit for purpose anymore. Close to 250,000 views on this thread. That's your evidence.

[lindylu]

I have no doubt it is all due to these new regulations <<bangs head against a brick wall>> that are supposed to make life better for us, but in fact, make it worse.

It seems that everybody just treats the walls, does anybody treat the ceilings?

Dulux told me all we need to do is repaint the walls, and are being very unhelpful. The Paint Research Association was surprised by this, as they said that Dulux was in on the discussions on how to resolve the problem, and the treatment is essential. Dulux told me they had never heard of this. (I guess they don't want to be admitting any liability with the paint not being up to what it should be these days).

Somebody please inform the Daily Mail, they love stories like this, and no doubt thousands will contact them. The paint companies claim it is only a handful of people who have problems, I suspect it is people that love to open the windows that have the problem, people that don't, will never notice.

Humidity isn't a problem here, my room is always around 44-49%, it is definitely opening a window, even a small one, that causes the problem. My house reeks today, as 2/3 of the house has just been painted since last September.

[Rodgydodge]

Hi I've just received an email from B&Q


[Thank you for your email dated the 6th April 2017. We apologise for the delay in our response.

The ‘wall odour phenomenon’ briefly referred to by Watchdog is one that is known to have existed in the global paint industry for a number of years. In the UK, it is accepted by both industry bodies – the Paint Research Association (PRA) and British Coatings Federation (BCF) – that instances of ‘wall odour phenomenon’ is an industry-wide challenge that affects a very small number of customers purchasing paint from a range of different manufacturers.

This ‘wall odour phenomenon’ presents itself as an ammonia-type smell, and is caused by bacteria or chemicals present on the surface of walls before painting. In exceptional circumstances, odour issues can arise when affected walls are painted, and particularly when there is direct sunlight on the wall and a draught in the room. Independent tests show that this is not in any way caused by or related to the quality or formulation of the paint products, and that there are no health and safety side effects.

Customers should not be alarmed by this. ‘Wall odour phenomenon’ is an extremely rare occurrence and affects only around 0.001% of customers. It is also easily prevented or rectified by applying an alkali resisting sealer to the wall before painting. However, if anyone is concerned that their walls may be presenting the issue, or would like to find out more about how to prevent ‘wall odour phenomenon’ from occurring, we would encourage them to contact their paint manufacturer’s customer service team directly for further advice.

If you wash your walls down with Sugar Soap, this should eliminate the odour.

Thank you for contacting B&Q.

Kind regards,

Kirsty Henderson B&Q Customer Services
+44(0) 333 014 3098 b&qcustomerservices@b-and-q.co.uk]

This looks like they are washing their hands of all litigation with the help of some of industry standards! I will try washing the walls first with sugar soap before taking it any further. I'm still waiting for Valspar to reply so watch this space. I hope this isn't a fob off from B&Q. To be fair, I usually do wash all the walls down first anyway before decorating but on this occasion we where pushed for time to get it done and I skipped the process lack of good preparation skills on my part, so I smack my hands. If sugar soap does kill all the so called bacteria and the smell goes then I would recommend all paint suppliers to put up this heeded warning so the general public are aware of the issue. Sadly I wasn't I'm now going to read all preparation instructions on the tin see if it says anything about bacteria on there. I've been doing my own decorating since completing my City & Guilds in the mid '90s and this is the first time I've heard about this problem.

[Janeholla]

I am so pleased to have found this post

Newly plastered and decorated whole house. Used valspar trade as recommended by b and q to go directly onto bare plaster with no need for a primer

All done for Xmas and very happy with effect

Last 3 weeks - that smell - only in hall downstairs at the moment - eventually found out it was the walls
Timing was always after 2pm just as sun has been on the huge window and lasting all evening getting worse when door opened. It's a hallway we have to get into the house

Today went to b and q and asked the lovely lady on paint counter if she had heard of it - I was the second person to bring it up today!

She rang valspar and I spoke to customer services

I have to send a photo of batch number
They are going to email me instructions on how to remedy and vouchers for alkali resisting primer and new paint

She was very understanding and I found the process quite painless

I have bought some of said primer as I didn't want to wait I have just finished painting 3 areas and will be smelling the walls over the next few days to compare non primed and primed - it's plenty of work to be done do I want to do test patches first before I commit to the whole job

I will post in a week to update

[Tubularowl]

UPDATE - it's getting to be a nightly thing this but Google has picked up this thread and it's showing high in searches. In discussion with Valspar at the moment but I think I'm close to a fob off. Much of my stench was on new plaster so that throws B&Q's response out the window.

Anyway, I've now used 3 tins of BIN and apart from behind the radiators everything downstairs is done. I'm having a new boiler put in next week so will remove the radiators to complete the job then. I've even relaid the carpet in the hallway and the whole downstairs smells fresh and fine now I've done the living room. Let see how it goes from now.

I still have one wall in a bedroom that is starting to smell. I'm going to try sugar soap and see what it does. All it should do is add moisture to the wall which is not the answer but I will give it a go. Nothing to lose and I can always BIN it later. I might experiment with this wall to see if I can kill it another way.

[Rodgydodge]

Is it ok to paint over this alkali paint with emulsion? I thought the alkali paint was oil based, past experience taught me that water base over oil tends to peel!

[Tubularowl]

No news from Valspar today. I don't actually think they know how to handle this problem very well. Probably scratching their heads as there are 3 customers in the last week who have this problem. If it affects 1 in 100,000 customers then customer service are talking rubbish. The maths doesn't add up. What about those that haven't found this forum yet?

So I decided to phone Zinsser. A bit of sweet talking and I got though to a technical boffin. Perfect and he wanted to talk. Basically he said that BIN primer was the perfect/only solution to this stench. He went into depth about how and why it worked. It's a great choice. It can be over painted with any emulsion without a problem. He did talk a lot about fungicide and biocides and how it was lacking or missing in most mainstream paint. He said that the BIN must be over painted in emulsion or it will start to degrade over the years which puts my idea of leaving it alone out of the game. He then went on to recommend their own emulsion paint which I didn't know they even did - ZINSSER PERMA WHITE - . This is an anti mold and anti bacteria paint. Available UK wide but not in B&Q. You will have to google a local paint supplier. I did so rang them for a chat and they told me its tintable in hundreds of colours. Cost is about the same as normal emulsion and you can get it in Matt, gloss and silk.

Zinsser BIN saved my house so I think their paint has got to be worth a go.

[Tubularowl]

Here is a link to the Zinsser PERMA White for your information.
http://www.zinsseruk.com/product/perma-white-interior/

[Rodgydodge]

I think Valspar are being inundated with people contacting them. My sister pointed me in there Facebook direction. There are loads of people slating them on there they've even stopped requesting that people contact their customer service, twice I've sent an email, No communication from them as yet. Phone call will be the last resort as its minute rate is expensive especially if you have to wait in a que. I washed my downstairs walls the other afternoon with sugar soap as B&Q suggested, I didn't get the smell yesterday but it has turned a little cold here and I haven't opened any windows I'm trying this today. If the sugar soap works then all will be well.
I agree Valspar need to get a better customer relations going or they are going to lose a lot of business. I just cant believe that if these company's have known about this for a few years now why haven't they put some warning on the paint tin in the preparation of walls!? its crazy

[Tubularowl]

Thanks for keeping us informed Rodgydodge. No one has contacted me from Valspar either today. Still smells fine at home but will try suger soap on the smelly bedroom wall and monitor what it does. Hope it works for you.

I did try Jayes fluid on the bedroom wall about a month ago but the smell from the dead was back within a week. funny how the other 3 walls are fine that were painted in a different batch number of paint........

[lindylu]

Mine is definitely not batch number related, the rooms were done at three separate times with newly purchased trade Dulux and the ceilings with trade Crown. Despite the Crown rep visiting over a week ago, he hasn't got back to me and my texts are ignored. Dulux are as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

I simply don't have £3,000 plus the cost of the neutraliser and the labour costs involved in that, to do it all over again.

Somebody please contact the Daily Mail, they love these stories.

[Rodgydodge]

After sending two emails off to Valspar and complaining on their facebook page they made contact this evening. they said they didn't know what my complaint was about....durrrr....
I've resent a copy of the emails and reiterated exactly what the problem is!
I've had my windows open today and must admit the smell wasn't as bad as its previously been but then again its not been that warm here on the northeast coast. I'm like a dog with a bone now and can't let this go.
see what transpires tomorrow.