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

[Sapphy]

I am beginning to think that stripping the paper off may be the best way forward ... I am not convinced about the primer solution and the smell is driving me insane. Rather oddly, my DH and son don't seem as sensitive to the smell in fact DH only gets the occasional whiff and can't understand the problem, but my daughter mentions it as soon as she comes into the house every day :/

[shantom]

Just had to reply to this thread. I too have been having the same problem with a gas smell coming from the walls.

The other year I painted the toilet walls and a few months later when the weather warmed up I had to call the gas board out as I thought I could smell gas. Turned out there was no gas leak. I ended up smelling the walls and bingo that's what the smell was. Anyway the smell has gone from there now thank god.

Painted my living room in December 2010 and low and behold as soon as the summer came and the days got warmer the gas smell came back, this time in the living room.

The smell isn't there every day but it's definitely there when it's roasting outside. To be honest I'm getting fed up with this now. I've started to get a little whiff of the same gassy smell from my daughters room which was decorated in spring 2011.

It's a joke and just felt that I had to add my experiences as obviously people out there don't believe it's happening.

What are the paint manufacturers doing to their paint?? It's making me not want to do any decorating as I can't bear the smell.

[clairebuxton]

I Seem to be experiencing the same problem with a revolting gassy smell after painting my hallway- the smell eminates from the areas where I have overpainted wall paper -although it had already been overpainted by the previous owner. The areas where I painted painted wood and bare mdf (new understairs cupboard) do not smell.
I have previously painted other areas of the house which also have the same wall paper, without the smell. I do not stick to the same brand of paint - go with the colour I want, and the area affected by the smell was done with HOMEBASE Just One Coat paint - not Crown.
Has anyone else had the bad smell experience with other paints, and what can I do to combat the smell?

[clairebuxton]

We had our dining room, kitchen area and utility room painted two weeks ago. The kitchen/utility was done in Crown Fashion Walls Etiquette and this does not smell at all. However our dining room was painted in Homebase Magnolia One Coat and this is the room that really smells.

But this gets even stranger as we also did a spare room in the same Magnolia paint and as yet we haven't smelt anything. However, the spare room does not get as hot as the dining room so we rarely open a window. Like everyone else the smell gets worse in the dining room when its hot and or when the doors and windows are open. At the moment they are open alot because of the weather and the heat in the conservatory area which is next to the dining room.

I called Homebase earlier to tell them i had a problem and they were not very interested, i was told to go back to the store and take the paint for testing, oh yes, more testing, how many times do they need to do this before they hold their hands up? My visit this weekend will be interesting and i will let you all know the outcome.

JUST FOUND THIS POST AFTER FIRST REPLYING TO THE FORUM MENTIONING HOMEBASE PAINT. I USED THE ONE COAT PAINT ON WALLPAPER AND GOT THE FOUL SMELL - DOES seagull's SMELLY ROOM HAVE WALLPAPER?

[timhowe]

Hi All,

This really does sound like it is a bigger problem than the Manufactors like to admit, I painted 3 rooms in our house, while Dulux Tough paint, with the arrival of a first child due. In August last year. Using this paint as it is great for wiping down dirty hand marks in the future, which made sense to us.

After spending days doing this, we found the rooms on a warm day would smell of Gas, which like anyone would, we got the gas board out straight away, and they checked and it was all fine. They seemed to think it must be the drains, so went down that route, and have Soil pipes changed, still nothing.

So we were told to look at the rooms we decorated and it seems that it was the paint, so contacted Dulux who supplied us with a Voucher to gain a Primer to seal the wall/Paint and new paint, so did all the rooms again, which over the winter smelt nothing, But not the the warm weather is arrived, the rooms are starting to smell and we cant put our 8 month old son in that room. Which means he will have to come back into our room again which isnt right.

I am at a place were I dont know what to do. As this has already cost us over £400 in building costs and a crazy amount of time to try and get this sorted!!!

[snowie1]

Well mixed feelings finding this discussion. It's just 3 weeks since I decorated our living room when our smell first started. Like everyone else, we thought it was gas. I had the carpets up and took up the floorboards as we did have a gas fire taken out and thought perhaps we had a gas leek. No. We had three neighbours in to confirm the gas smell before getting a plumber in. Now, the weather has warmed and, like others, the windows are opened, the smell is back. I am a professional painter and decorator. I washed all the walls with sugar soap prior to painting. One coat of white and two top coats of Dulux. I have never come across this problem in all my years and was amazed when my wife showed me this forum. What to do? Well I guess on Monday I will have to speak to Dulux but as this problem has been going on for so long with so many different manufacturers, what chance do I have in resolving the problem? No a lot but I guess I'll have to try phoning any way.

[jds]

I have a newly platered wall that has the same gas like smell. But it is not painted yet (2 weeks after it was done). It appears to be the plaster that is smelling in our case. I used the same builder to lay a tiled floor on a concrete foundation in a toilet. That room also has the same smell. Could it be some sort of adhesive that is used to bond plaster to the wall that creates the smell?

Out of interest have all people who have experience bad smelling paint been painting over fresh plaster?

[timhowe]

Hi,
My walls on a wall that has been painted about 4 years ago, in a house that is over 8 years old now. So dont quite understand why it happening now.

Tim

[jds]

Feeling foolish. After my last post about it possibly being plaster that smells, I have remembered that prior to a bit of plastering, about 1 month ago the ceiling was painted. Guess what - Crowne Matt Emulsion!! The ceiling smell is not too bad. But in the toilet the same paint is on the walls. The sun has just hit it and that is how I realised what was smelling.

[Colinrichard]

2012 LATEST: I have been using Crown Matt Paint Liqueur for quite a few years in different rooms with no problem. However, about a year ago I bought a 5ltr can from B&Q. Upon application the room stank of what smelt like cats pee. Without doubt this is due to the fact that the paint is so called Breatheasy. I could not use this particular bedroom but after months this embarrassing smell faded. I am glad that I found this site since it is psychologically reinforcing to know that I am not alone! Seemingly they are still investigating this phenomenon (April 2012). I have been told that I should not get this problem if I use silk. I am about to find out but if I do I will Crown that chap on the helpline who advised me!

[nikkytam]

We painted our living room with crown breatheasy silk white,it stank even on application and i joked with my husband that they had a cheek to call it breatheasy!,this was only the beggining to say the least we painted the room on the first week of december 2011 and first noticed a strange sickly smell appear about 4 weeks later,the smell then increased to being unidentifiable then to as if a cat had gotten in and wee'd without us knowing,the smell has no rhyme nor reason to when it appears or fades the room is north faceing and as yet has not really had intense sunshine on it,i am gutted as i used the paint on all 4 walls and ceiling and am now wondering how on earth i can rectify this awfull problem we no longer use the room and choose to live in our kitchen ,i see on reading some posts that repainting may help but then find another that say's it doesn't if anyone has a resolve for this awfull problem please post back.

[Meme]

What a relief to stumble upon this site. I too have been driven insane by the horrid ammonia type stench since painting my daughters room a few days ago with Crown Matt Emulsion.
After the first day of painting there was no smell at all. However, two days later I opened my daughters bedroom door after a nights sleep and was completely overwhelmed with the smell. I thought maybe i'd left a dirty nappy in her room or even that our dog had peeded on the floor...(cue me on my hands and knees sniffing every inch of the carpet!) I then sniffed the walls and boy did it stink. I waited a few days hoping it would fade but a week had passed and nothing.
My first concern is whether or not my daughter is safe to sleep in her room? I have telephoned Crown and they wanted a batch number which I gave and they are sending vouchers for their primer. But after reading all 11 pages here I don't know whether to risk it or strip the lining paper off completely. What's annoying me is the time, effort and cost of doing out the room which is now stinking out the whole of our upstairs.
Would it be worth me pushing Crown to get someone out to my home? Also, to those who have used the primer....should I evacuate the house whilst it's drying. I'm panicking that the smell may have gone through to the walls and am sitting here thinking that I should strip off the paper ASAP?
Please can someone reassure me/advise me....i'm at my wits end all over a sodding tin of Crown paint!!!!

[Colinrichard]

I certainly would not let a child of mine sleep in a room with this smell. I would get a Crown rep. out first since they are not being straight forward on this matter. At a push it usually takes one smell to overpower another, maybe burning incense or the like. I am still deciding what to do regards painting. I think I will play safe and wallpaper the room. All the best. P.S. Let us know how you get on.

[SarahGarden]

Got a call from Crown today, very polite but useless, telling me to use onion.....asked how did they sorted other customers simmilar problem with their paint and was told that this is client confidentiality and crap...we are not talking about bank accounts, are we??? They offered another tin of paint, which I politely refused, than told me to use oil based primer (??) which again I refused. What i do want is to know why is the smell forming and to know if I paint over (obviously with other brand paint) will the smell go away, but to no avail.

So fellow sufferers of Crown emulsion smell, has anyone painted over and got rid of the problem or any other solution, like Milton???

jeez onion? like how to use it?

[SarahGarden]

what brand do you recommend then? I definitely will not go for crown after this:-)