Painting Over Water Damage Stains

Hello again out there, Cheap Calgary Painter here again. In this Painting Over Water Damage Stains blog post I'm going to show you how I approach and paint over water stains. We've all seen water damage. It can be just a small stain, or even the whole ceiling, or an entire wall. It can also be so bad that you may have to replace your gyprock or drywall, maybe even some rotten timber or wood. 

We're not going to get into that as you're better off calling in professionals if it's that severe. In this blog post on our Cheap Calgary Painting internet website, we are going to tackle just a simple stain that isn't too bad, but but needs treating so it doesn't bleed through your subsequent coats of paint. Have you ever tried to paint over stain only to be frustrated because it simply came through your fresh coat of paint? 

Or you painted it over where someone wrote on the wall with an ink pen, it comes straight through, doesn't it, or the kids drew on the wall with their crayons, it came through too. How do we stop this. What on earth do? We do put more coats of paint over it. Yeah, I know some of you have done that, I've seen it enough times. 

All right, well it still comes through. Well the cavalry is here to help you with a fix and get you on your way. It's super easy to stop any stain that allows you to finish your paint job without all that frustration. As I always say, painting is easy part. It's the preparation that really separates one job from another, and how you handle stains is just another step in preparing your ceilings and walls before you paint. 

In this painting over water damage stains, we're prepping a water stain. So allow me to state the bleeding obvious, make sure you fix the leak before everything else. Even treating and painting over the stain will not stop any further staining if it still leaks. It'll come back. Now let me just show you just how easy this really is. 

I'm in my customers home office, and just above me is a water stain. This is the water stain. I'm going to show you how to paint over it without it bleeding through. On most ceilings today you have probably 99% water-based paint. Whether it's flat plastic, while whether it's vinyl or acrylic, or maybe even a combination. It's still the last thing you will see in a room if you don't treat it. 

Some guys will tell you to paint over top of that of the stain with a an oil basin enamel. It'll work, but how well is that oil based product going to hold up. Now we're going to adhere oil based paint or primer sealer to that water-based paint. It's not recommended if you are going to go that way, and you are going to be painting over water-based paint then make sure you put an oil-based undercoat over that. 

First, that'll give you a good key for the enamel to put through there. Now you can put the oil-based undercoat on there, it'll look fine. You'll go that took care of the stain, but if you were to paint over that under that oil-based undercoat with water-based paint, it's still going to bleed through. The system I'm going to recommend to you is if we're going to be using a stain blocker, this is the one that I use. 

I've used is probably for 30 years. It works. And that's why I stick with it, there's still plenty of other brands out there that will do the exactly the same thing. I just used that from day one, and I'm stuck with that one. This will also stop like if someone's written on the wall with with an ink pen. It comes straight through almost immediately when you paint over it. 

Well this will stop it. If your kids with crayons and things are you know felt tip markers and that, that it'll bleed through your paint. This will stop it. Now what I'm going to do on this day above me for you guys just so you can see exactly what happens is, I'm going to take some tape and some newspaper and, I'm going to tape half of it off. 

I'm going to treat half of that stain with this. I'm going to take the paper off, and once this is dry, I'm going to paint the whole area with some water-based paint, which here will be an acrylic flat paint. So it's a water-based paint, and then I'll show you exactly what happens if you don't treat your stain. I'll point out here that you can probably also wash some of this stuff off or even wipe it off like that. 

But the stain is still there. Okay, and this stain goes all the way through. If I could take this bit off and cut through that you'll see the stain all the way through that gyprock or drywall, so those that think that you're going to stop that by soaking some Clorox or something else into that, okay you're going to treat the surface, but it's still there unless you treat it. 

It's still going to come through your water-based paint. Make sure you treat it. This spray can got a little ball in it. I've already done it, this is what you do this for 3-4 minutes. Just like that. What that does is it stirs up the paint inside the spray can. So here we go. A tip is tipping the can upside down okay, because you've got in that little nozzle you've got paint in there. 

If you leave this alone, it's going to dry. The next time you go to use it you go you push that little nozzle down nothing happens, so you got to clean it up. So hold that up for a few seconds before you press the nozzle. Press the nozzle, and you'll see paint come out, and then when it starts going clear then you've got it clean. There, just like that. 

Kaboom, and that's as long as it takes. This dries very quick, or give that 15 minutes, maybe 30 minutes. I'll go have a coffee or something, and we'll come back, we'll take this off, and we'll paint that with the water based paint, and then we'll let that dry, and we'll show you what happens. Okay we're back, the painted water damage stain covered in paint is dry, so we'll take off the paper expose the area that we haven't treated as yet. 

I don't know if you can see that, you probably can't because this is a blog post, but you can still see a little bit of discoloration there. But that's only because of the darkness of the actual stain. We've actually stopped that, which you were about to see, but you can still see all the stain that's there. Okay I'm not just going to paint over that whole area, we'll come back to that when it's dry. 

Okay it's nearly dry. It's touch dry anyway. And you can see, I don't know if you can see the line straight through there. I can see it up here, but I think you can still see that that stain you can, and I know you won't be able to see this, but you can just see a little bit of stain is not bleeding through. It's only because it's so much darker than the actual white paint. So it's just not quite covering. 

That's what we're talking about earlier, you probably need two coats of paint to finish it, but the stains not coming through. Then this shows you exactly why you treat your water stain now. Like I said earlier, I would have normally done the whole thing, but to show you guys exactly what happens if you don't treat it. 

Okay, you see what I do for you guys, you see the reaches I go to. You got you see the risks I go for you guys. How good is that. So now I have to go about and do exactly the same thing again. So I'll treat that water damage stain area again. I'll let that dry. I'll paint that. And I'll paint the whole thing again. And then it'll be good enough until I decide to paint the whole thing. 

But at least that would be ugly if you don't fix it ugly water mark won't be there on my customers ceiling. Now, a lot of times you're going to find there'll be mold. Instead of in like on top of the the stain, because there's moisture there, and you know some people we don't get to it soon enough, they'll be mold on it. It is advisable to wipe that off. 

And when it comes to wiping things off, the paint stores got all kinds of solutions and chemicals and stuff that you can actually use. Look, just a damp wet rag to get it off there will do the trick, and then treat it bleach. Some people will use bleach to wash off their stain. Be careful with washing off your stain, or if you are not really washing off the stain itself. 

If it's a piece of timber or wood, if it's whatever it is you're painting over, it's usually through the entire board or sheet of gyprock. The entire bit of gyprock or drywall. Okay it goes all the way through that stain, so you're only treating the very surface. When you're going to be washing that off with bleach or any special chemical solution that you buy from the paint store. 

Okay what I've always done, especially if there's a little bit of mold over the top, I just give it a wipe, and it might be a little damp cloth or something like that. Just a good way. That's it. Treat it with that special stain blocker primer sealer or stain blocker paint, and you're good to go. Another thing that you might be content on getting is, instead of purchasing the stain blocker, that's basically solvent based with needs a special solution for cleaning it up. 

You might be thinking, oh I'll get the water-based one. Well in my experience, the water-based ones very very rarely do what they're intended to do. Unless you've got a very, very light stain or discoloration, it's not going to work, and you wasted your time and money on that water-based stain blocker. So do yourself a favor, do it right from the very first go. 

My one of my famous saying is, if you can't afford to do it right the first time, how can you afford to do it twice. I told you how easy was that. By knowing what to use from the get-go, you have no issues, no frustrations, and more time to sit with a cup of coffee and admire you work. And the bonus, you saved yourself a heap of cash. 

Let's go over the tips. Tip number one, use a solvent-based stain blocker. Don't use a water-based stain blocker. These are two that I use. That's a liquid form that would be applied with a brush. I use this probably more so because most of the times it's just an ink stain, or a crayon stain, or even just a small blob of stain. just says prime sealer stain blocker okay by zinzer. 

It has to wash up with either methylated spirits, or something like rubbing alcohol. If it says it washes up with well anything else, it's not going to work. This comes in real handy for the simple fact that it's usually a small stain, or or it's a small little ink spot that someone drew on the wall. You just make sure you stir that up really well like that. 

There's a little lead ball in there, and that's what stirs it up inside, but if there's any separation that makes it all mix together. Don't use a water-based stain blocker, you might get away with it, but only if the stain is very slight, and it may still bleed through a little later on. Well that's it for tips on this one guys, it's only the one. I hope you guys something out of this Painting over water damage stains blog post. 

When you have water damage stains on your ceilings and your walls, you will get much better professional looking results and finishes calling in professionals to complete the work for you. Our Calgary Painters at our low cost professional Calgary Painting Company called 1/2 Price Pro Calgary Painting can help you with all of your water stain damage on your ceilings and walls. Give our friendly and fast and professional painters a call today over at (587) 800-2801. We can usually provide you an obligation free painting estimate or free painting price quote the same day.