peeling base board paint - old house
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Anonymous
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We have a 50's era house that's been maintained pretty well. The only area that has us concerned is the baseboards in a few areas. One spot, in particular, is starting to peel and I can see at least 3 colors there. Since this is the baseboard, there is a good chance that lead paint is somewhere down at the bottom, but I have no idea how many coats of paint has been on there over the years.
What is best to do? Should I test what is exposed? Is it fine to just paint over without sanding? I hate that look, but it seems safer than potentially disturbing something. Hiring pro painters is not in the budget right now, but I have about 2 weeks where I can do the labor myself. |
Anonymous
| Just assume there's lead in there somewhere and paint over it with a couple coats of paint. Do not prep the surface by sanding. |
Anonymous
| Is there anything I can do to make it less messy? The top paint is obviously latex, because it's newish and you can tell by the way get peel. |
Anonymous
| Paint. Probably only the base layer is lead. You can get a basic test kit at Home Depot. Only our base layer was. We choose to replace. You can paint. I would use a stop peel primer first |
Anonymous
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I'd test for lead. If there isn't any, you could do some scraping / sanding / repainting over 2 weeks and make it look decent.
If there is lead, you don't have enough time (or budget it sounds like) to do a great job. |
Anonymous
What if it tests positive (the lowest level)? I would still just paint over it, but not sand, right? I won't be ripping out the trim. |
Anonymous
Use a good primer to seal it. They make some that stops peeling now. Primer and paint. I wouldn't sand. We sanded ours till we realized we should test it. The bottom layer was lead. I doubt the original owners would have used lead paint so it must have been the builder. We ripped them out as they looked terrible after being painted so many times and the sanding was not working well. The key is to paint or get rid of them. You could use something like this: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Zinsser-Gallon-Peel-Stop-Clear-Binding-Primer-60001-Set-of-4/21934032?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=795&adid=22222222227016815885&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=52589464751&wl4=pla-84470164631&wl5=9007807&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=112562476&wl11=online&wl12=21934032&wl13=&veh=sem |
Anonymous
| Those who ripped them out, did you use a GC for the work. Did you use a company certified for lead? |
Anonymous
We just ripped them out ourselves. We put a layer of plastic and then paper on the floor and pulled them out. There was very little dust. Cleaned with a HEPA vacuum and mopped and was done. Then we replaced them (DIY). You don't need a GC to do it. You can hire a handy man, carpenter, or DIY. Our lead was only in one layer on the base so the likelihood of it being an issue was slim to rip them out (the sanding we did prior to ripping them out was probably a problem but the doctor was not concerned when I went to talk to her about it). |
Anonymous
| How about coat of primer, then lightweight joint compound to even out the area, then sanding to smooth it out, then prime and paint? |
Anonymous
You can do that or use wood filler. The problem is with the sanding. If you can DIY, its far easier to replace and it isn't that dusty to remove. Its a lot of work to repair. I tried repairing (till we realized it was lead) and it still did not look as nice as new. |
Anonymous
If you are sanding here, you won't be disturbing the bottom layer of paint, though, right? Isn't that the issue with sanding? |