Painting Areas of High Condensation in a Bathroom - What is the Best Paint? General decorating topics, questions and answers. find help, tips and advice on completing your decorating projects

[Vic112]

I painted my newly skimmed bathroom (the ceiling and wall furthest away from bath as all other walls were tiled) about 3 months ago using Dulux paint for Bathrooms. The bathroom is an area of high condensation (we keep the window and door open when showering and there is a fan right above the shower) but we don't seem to be able to reduce the condensation - sometimes you can see the trickles on the ceiling.

I've read a lot about condensation in bathrooms and I don't think there's much else I can do to rectify it. What I really want advice on is the paint. It's started to flake ever so slightly above the shower and I'm wondering if the Dulux paint was not good enough. Can anyone recommend something which wouldn't flake?

I've read I could use an anti-condensation paint which could then be painted over using normal emulsion. Is this correct?

Thanks!

[proptech]

Hi Vic112

There's no paint on the planet than can take that treatment. You really have got to resolve the condensation issue. Perhaps if you could post more information of the construction of the property, and any insulation, details of the fan etc.
we may be able to come up with something.
One thing that comes to mind, is that there could already be very high humidity in the property before you take a shower, for example, do you dry your washing indoors, or do you create a lot of steam when cooking. It could be a case of a shower just being the last straw !

[theshedman]

Before putting on this type of paint you should have sealed the new plastered areas first with a mist coat of emulsion which is a watered down coat or 2 first The best thing to use for this is a normal matt finish emulsion and not a vinyl or specialist one as you seemed to have used as the walls need to be sealed before applying the top coats. You say that some areas are now starting to peel. To stop this you may need to remove all the emulsion you have put on as most of it will be sitting on the surface and not adhered to the walls properly. The paint you are using is good for the room you are decorating as it takes in moisture when the room is wet and allows it back out when the room is drier. You seem to be doing the right thing with windows etc. Shorter showers could help or if there are a few of you using it after each other then you must expect it to get wet sometimes but if you paint it properly it should cut out some of the problems and stop it from peeling. Good luck with it.

[Vic112]

Hi there

theshedman...
Before applying the paint I did seal it, not with watered down emulsion but with a cheap normal emulsion from Crown. What would the best way be to remove the emulsion?

proptech...
The property is brick walls, tiled roof. Walls have cavity wall insulation and loft space is insulated too. Bathroom is at back corner of house, and has two external walls. The fan we have is the Xpelair LV100T and is ceiling mounted right above the shower and vents out of the eaves. My next door neighbour has complained of a similar problem (they have started to get damp on their ceiling). We don't tend to create much steam when cooking - we have a cooker hood fitted which works well and vents outside and as for the washing, we do dry it on a maiden indoors but have never noticed the clothes causing condensation or anything like that.

[proptech]

Thanks for the feedback. I do have to push the point of the washing though. Think of the weight of a basket of washing straight from the machine, compared with the same basket dry - all that water is in the air !
One thing that may be worth considering is to change the fan for one with a humidistat, such as the LV100HTA. I would also consider trying to get about as much loft insulation as possible over that area.

It's not really worth thinking about the remedy for the paint until this situation is improved. But as theshedman has said, the first coat should have been thinned down. You could try removing with a high quality, and fairly flexible stripping knife. You may find the paint easily peels away, Try it with the surface wet!