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

[Mazzy]

A simple google search for crown paint smelling and up comes this discussion.
We have just put four coats on our lounge walls and ceiling plus the study walls and ceiling which took us a good few days.
Today i left the study window open and i came home to find the house absolutely stinks especially the study, in fact it is unbearable! We have found the smell is worse when it is warm/the heating is on or we have the windows or doors open. So really looking forward to the nice weather we are expecting this week?! Even a good few plug ins can't disguise the smell!
Like everyone else we have been going round sniffing everything for the past 4 weeks and have finally deduced today it is the paint.
We brought our CROWN matt emulsion from B & Q on offer - buy one get one free - mmmm I wonder why it is such a bargain?!
Has anyone actually managed to get anywhere with crown? I can't bear the thought of having to re paint, it took me enough to get motivated to paint the first time round!
Good luck to all - think we will write a letter of complaint and see where we get.

[Mazzy]

By the way has anyone endured the smell and it has gone away?
Walls are newly plastered so not wanting to paper over them. :x

[ocean]

This is an interesting problem, what i would suggest is that crown wont want to admit a problem, clearly something is reacting. Heat and light are a common feature here and heat and light are catylsts to chemical reactions. I did olevel chemistry dont you know! Having the windows open i cant think would make a difference unless perhaps raising humidity which could also speed up any chemical reaction and a breeze spreading the smell. May i ask you all to do a little experiment. Paint something inert, peice of glass, ceramic tile and leave in a different room but in similar conditions. Or perhaps to a freind or neighbour. Then you will know if its the paint or the reaction to the surface its painted on. If its the paint then you need a chemist. Fasinating problem though.

[ocean]

further to my earlier post - ive learnt following
abouth thickners used in paints - check out the last point.
......... 1. Thickeners and Rheology Modifiers
(rheology is the science of how a liquid tends to flow)

• provide adequate viscosity (thickness), so the paint may be applied properly
• impact how thick the paint goes on and how well it flows out when applied
• modern rheology modifiers help latex paints to:
- resist spattering when applied by roller
- flow out smoothly
- be less likely to spoil than with older generation thickeners
(with spoilage, the paint may smell putrid and/or lose viscosity)

Spoilage of the paint may be an issue, im not sure how/what spoilage actually means. Age or storage environment perhaps. Just because you bought the paint new doesnt mean it is new, it may have been sitting about in a ware house for months. Like I say paint something inert - that will give you your answer. Then you can get some sense out of crown. If you have done your homework and know what your talking about - see how fast they respond then - pretty quick id imagine if they are at any fault.

[derbyram1]

Hello,

Painted my sons bedroom with Crown paint a couple of years ago and during the folowing summer had the gas smell which like everyone else assumed was a gas leak.

I now realise it was the paint and having looked at this forum decided to take drastic actions. Firstly I hired an industrial sander to remove the old paint (this was a nightmare and only managed to remove about 60% of it) and then had all my wall re plastered and sealed followed by 2 coats of DULUX magnolia.

The rest of the summer past without any smell but every now and then I keep thinking I can smell it again. I feel I have no options left now.... has anyone managed to get rid of the smell all togather??? Whats all this about onions??

[ciccia]

Hi - not sure if you have had a chance to read all the entries but I posted several in July 08 mentioning the very same problem. I posted an entry saying that I had solved the problem with one coat of alkali resisting primer and a coat of dulux emulsion..... thought it doesnt seem to work for everyone.

[princesskasren]

I had the same problem...bought the Crown white emulsion in a buy one get one at a DIY place and it stank! I used the International resistant alkali primer and then repainted with Duluxe matt white paint and it worked!!! Expensive fix but it had to be done.

[fruitgum]

Hi
We recently paid £450 to have my sons bedroom decorated and are now left with the most horrible smell! We bought Crown Breatheasy Silk emulsion which didn't smell when it was being applied but now smells awful. We can't have the windows open in his room as the whole house stinks of it! The walls are still tacky too.
I contacted Crown who told me that the paint must have reacted with what was on the walls before but we think that is rubbish! It was applied over paint that had been on the walls for 8 years! They sent us a voucher for an Alkali paint and said they would arrange a courier to collect the remaining paint so it could be analysed. A week later they rang to say that the courier had lost the tin!! They sent me a voucher for 2 more tins of emulsion. The problem is we paid to have the room decorated as we haven't got the time to do it ourselves and we certainly can't afford to have it done again. We are at a loss to know what to do now and were wondering what to do next. There is obviously a big problem with this paint and it needs looking in to. :x

[Susan C]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me if when they used the alkalhi primer they noticed the smell had gone before they repainted.
I am fed up with having all the windows closed in all this nice weather. I was hoping over time that the smell would just go away but it has not. So tomorrow is primer day !!!
What I dont want to do is paint with the primer, then repaint with paint ( no i am most definately not using crown paint) and then have to get the bedroom papered as a last resort because it has not worked.

So what I am really asking is does the smell go as soon as you use the primer before repainting.

[Susan C]

Hi again,

Just a quick update.

I painted my bedroon with one good coat of Crown ( I had it given me :roll: ) Alkali resistant primer on Tuesday. Applied it with a roller even though it said a brush on the tin. Kept all doors and windows shut when applying it and while it dried. Was not very hopeful as it is quite a runny solution, I did keep stirring it in the tin as a clear liquid seemed to gather on top of the primer while it stood.

The test.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday had all windows open and YIPEE NO SMELL. The weather has been very warm and previously if I had the window open for 10 minutes the cat pee smell started to appear. So hopefully I have smelt the last of it. :D

I am going to wait a while before I paint it again and am toying with the idea of giving the primer another coat before i do.

Cannot tell you what a relief it is to hopefully be shot of it.

Never using crown again !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SPINEY NORM]

I have used Crown Paint for over 25 years now with no odour problems.
I did however recently use some Gyproc Primer which had been stored and had "gone off" The smell was awful like bad eggs.
I did also do some building work recently and experienced a gas type odour which comes and goes, but I have not painted in the house for a couple of years now. Perhaps not all of the odurs being experienced here are from the paint after all?

[chez]

I am so pleased to have found this forum - our smelly bedroom has been puzzling me and my other half since we had our bedroom decorated about two months ago.

We have been on the floor sniffing every nook and cranny and thought that it was a gas smell, but couldn't understand where it was coming from as we don't have any gas pipes upstairs....we thought that a mouse had died under the floor, but couldn't smell anything or see anything..

We have been keeping the window open to try to rid the room of the smell, but as you have all mentioned it just seems to come back worse.

The paint we used was Crown emusion in Sail White - a lovely shade but sadly with a nasty smell that doesn't match...!!

I am going to contact Crown to complain and see what they can do - but like many of you we spent a lot of money getting the room decorated...

Anyway - we are rather relieved as we thought we'd have to have floor boards up and major work looking for a rogue gas leak...

[kezq]

OMG I think I've finally got rid of that rotten egg smell after decorating.
I too had that awful eggy smell develop after about three week from painting our daughters bedroom, but we had used Wickes matt emulsion, and not the Crown one that everyone else has seemed to have problems with....maybe they use the same formula?
Anyway, after searching the web trying to find out what the smell actually was, I found that it is probably a build up of either hydrogen sulphite (the stink bomb material) or ammonia (wet nappies), I then searched for neutralizers for them both...only to find that plain old white vinegar or bicarbonate of soda would do the job, something about acids, alkalis and bases cancelling each other out or something like that....stuff I vaguely remeber from chemistry years ago at school.
I quickly botched together a weak solution of water and white vinegar in an old cleaned out Cillet bang sprayer and went to town on the walls and ceiling of my daughters bedroom......after it had dried (within two hours), that crappy smell had virtually gone, with only a very slight vinegary hint in the air.
Went to bed after another assault with the spray and stunned by the results in the morning.
No eggy smell at all, gone, nada......a much fainter vinegar whiff present which I'm expecting will be gone soon, but I much prefer the chip shop aroma to the glastonbury portaloo stench.
Will try a little lemon juice in the mixture next time round to see what that does, but amazed how quick it worked and would definately recommend to anyone else with this problem to give it a go.
Kez

[SPINEY NORM]

It appears that these odours are not just with the Crown paint then? It is highly unlikely that the same formula is used by WiCKS and Crown?
Someone once told me that the Dulux technical department told them that there is a component in some of the Dulux emulsions that can be reactivated when painted over with any emulsion, causing a smell.
Out of interest have any of you painted over an old Dulux paint when getting this problem?

[waterb]

Another one glad to have found this thread.

Our new-build lounge ceiling was partially stainblocked and completely repainted last week after a leak from the bathroom above.

The contractor used Crown trade emulsion (as was used in every other room in our house with no problems 2 years ago when the house was completed).

The room is north facing and does not get much direct sunlight, but in the current hot weather it reeks of gas on warmer days. Like most others it seems, the smell worsens with the windows open and is worst mid-afternoon when the room is hottest. Today our room smells so bad it's unusable.

I have contacted our housebuilder and the representative I spoke to has never come across this problem before but has promised to investigate. Unfortunately he inspected on a cool day when there was no smell to be detected so I have also pointed him in the direction of this thread.

I will post again if we have any further developments.