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

[dustyb]

Wow, what a long but useful thread. Incredible that it's gone on for so long.

I just wanted to chip in to say we've just had a similar situation with Dulux paint, so it isn't just Crown.

After moving home we painted a bedroom in white emulsion to tone it down before adding a coloured Dulux emulsion to 3 of the walls, leaving the other wall white ready for wallpapering.

Then we got the sweaty socks/cat pee smell. After sniffing the coloured walls, it's clear the smell is coming from them. The remaining white wall has no smell.

Following on from that, sniffing the outside of the Dulux tin where the paint has run down, and it's clearly this paint. We had actually bought two tins of the same colour, but only needed one, so after opening the second tin this smelt fine. The tins were different batch numbers though.

Dulux are sending us vouchers for the cost of paint and the primer to re-paint, but this doesn't cover the time and effort having to re-paint the walls and being without a bedroom for god-knows how long, so I'm not entirely happy. I just hope the primer works.

[alfie100]

I have just used Dulux bathroom+ paint and with the condensation from the shower the walls smell terrible. Has anyone else experienced this?

[Richgcfc]

Thanks everyone for all the posts!!
I contacted crown paints about the same issues your having as my room stinks and has been on and off for months!!
I only contacted them yesterday and have to say their customer service is fantastic!
I heard back today and after ringing me back I was told j would get new paint, roller set, 7.5 liters of paint and 5 liters of alkaline sealer delivered to my house tomorrow!!!!
Fantastic service

Will let you know in a couple of weeks how it goes!

[danielsellers]

Well we're at the end of our tether. Our brilliant decorator recently repainted 6 of our 7 rooms. One of the 6 was our bedroom. It's a big room. We painted below the picture rail with Crown Crochet CT Matt (not sure what the CT bit means). It stank. For the next six weeks or so the smell got worse and worse, being especially bad when the window was opened! It smelled of a mix between dead flowers and cat urine. Our decorate spoke to guy he gets his trade paints from who swore he knew nothing about it.

I spoke to Crown who said it was no way their paint to blame ... and that we should either paint the wall with alkali sealer or strip it back and reline and repaint it. We did the latter. It costs us £300. We used the same paint.

For a few days it was fine, then the smell came back. Tonight it's so overpowering it's like walking into gas. If you put your nose to it stinks, toxically.

We are gutted and just don't know what to do. I want to just go buy another brand of paint and repaint it myself ... what a waste of money and effort.

Has anyone else found the smell has come back on repainting?

[Ipswich123]

Like a lot of people, can't believe how long this problem has been going on and only wish I'd googled the subject sooner!

Having paid a small fortune to have a downstairs cloakroom re-fitted I then made the mistake of painting the walls in Crown Breatheasy matt paint. Though the cloakroom was passed its sell by date it was clean and fresh now it looks great but smells like cat pee or as my daughters say their horses stable!

We have over the weekend re-painted in an Alkali resistant primer (not easy to find locally, B&Q said they had never heard of this issue or stocked the primer and looked at me like I was a bit simple) I'm not convinced, the smell of the primer is also extremely strong and I can only hope it dulls with time and works.

We have used this same colour of Crown 'Sail White' in two other rooms with no problem though this time we used a new batch of the paint and now much as I love the colour, not sure I will ever buy or use Crown paint ever again!

Fingers crossed .

[Helen71]

Another victim of stinky cat wee paint here!
A month ago, the good old B&Q 2 for £22 offer was on, so off I trotted and came home, enthusiastic about painting our lounge a lovely shade of grey.
I started painting and no smell. Ok, I thinks, we'll get the job finished at weekend.
Once me and him indoors had placed back the furniture, it started. Not an hour after we downed tools the stench commenced.
It was a warm day and I thought, oh perhaps we're a bit sweaty from all that decorating...
Next morning I thought: "argh! What can I smell?" I turned the house upside down for days. I remember this smell. I had a cat years ago. THAT'S BLOODY CAT WEE!
Searching for the neighbours cat whilst I wrung it's neck for sneaking into the house and piddling somewhere on our wooden floor I placed dishes around the room with bicarb, coffee beans, vinegar to counteract the alkali smell (that helped actually) and lit a thousand joss sticks.
Four or five days went by and no, it was still there.
How I came to start searching on the Internet I'll never know but I'm glad I did.
And I found this page, along with many others.
Crown flipping paint!
Anyway, undeterred, I emailed Crown to tell them of our plight and didn't rant and rave, I just politely asked them for assistance.
The next day a nice lady called Andrea called me to discuss the problem and she did say yes, it's the alkali in the paint.
She very kindly refunded the original cost of the paint and sent a voucher for a tin of the Alkali Resistant Sealer and 5 litres of new paint (trade). The lads at the trade centre hadn't heard of this issue before but assured me the product they were giving me was top notch stuff.
It's ten past midnight and I've just sat down feeling somewhat queasy from the fumes but the room is now ready to paint again this weekend. I did chuck a bit of this stuff on the walls several days ago and the smell had GONE!

Beware though it's a pain in the bottom to apply, stir it with all your might for about 30 minutes, otherwise it's like water. When mixed properly you'll have hours of sweary fun attempting to knit fog with this PVA style gloop that sticks to your brushes (forget cleaning them, it's all a complete mess even after 3 attempts at cleaning).
But get over it, get the stuff on as best you can and you'll 'Breathe Easy' again.

Don't hesitate to call Crown if you have this issue as they're really helpful, after all we have just had to redecorate the room (twice) but no matter, I could do with the exercise.

I'll be back after the second coat is on and dry with my update!

[Helen71]

SUCCESS!
Twice round the room yesterday with the really smashing new paint we got from the trade centre, which did smell ever so slightly like bad hair dye/ammonia but only on the brush (didn't smell on application or when drying) and we are done.
No more pongy whiffs, our house is as fragrant as a fragrant thing again.

I'll email Crown tomorrow to thank them as its done the trick! It's a faff as the room has now had six coats of different paint in total but I'm rather pleased after all that hassle!

[Laura1402]

Oh my god!
I thought I was going barmy. Could smell what I thought was gas, called National Grid out to test for gas. No gas.
Dead animal? No house to new for them to get into the cavities.
Sniffing floors, walls, everything.
Noticed that it was mainly coming from the walls. Decorated my bedroom about 3 months ago and the smell has appeared with the hot weather, slightly easing at different times of the day.
I now know it must be the paint. Anything people have done that has actually worked?

[Helen71]

Laura, read my above posts. The solution is above!

[EmaJ]

Hello there - it's a relief to find these posts, and know I'm not the only one - beautiful new flat was decorated with Albany emulsion 11 weeks ago, and still smells very unpleasantly - I think there's also a health issue, as they are quite toxic chemicals being given off - and I certainly find it gives me a sore throat and stinging eyes.
If anyone has any experience of difficulties with Albany specifically, and any ways of tackling it - or might it go away within the next few months? I'd be super grateful to hear -
Thanks alot

[EmaJ]

Have now discovered Albany paint is made by Crown, - so that explains it - I hope they're as helpful as some people have found them when I contact them next week -

[HandyMandy]

despite the age of the original post this has still made my mind up not to use Crown when i redecorate :D

[Mariaplzhelpme?]

really smashing new paint we got from the trade centre, which did smell ever so slightly like bad hair dye/ammonia but only on the brush (didn't smell on application or when drying) and we are done.
No more pongy whiffs, our house is as fragrant as a fragrant thing again.

I'll email Crown tomorrow to thank them as its done the trick

What alkali resisting primer did u use Plz?

[Drapers]

Summer 2015...
And Crown paint still stinks !

My bedroom smells like gas
last July immediately after paint dried the walls have begun releasing an overpowering smell like sewer gas :-(

If only I had come across earlier to all the online posts (and watchdog program), about this known issue with Crown I would have never purchased their paint (pure brilliant white matt breatheasy)

[CrownCustomerTeam]

We are sorry to hear that our product has not met your expectation on this occasion. At your convenience, please contact us directly on 0800 3896122 or advice@crownpaints.co.uk
Crown Paints Customer Relations Team