Just learned that painting over wallpaper adhesive without removing it first is basically a ticking time bomb

Was prepping to paint my spare bedroom last weekend - that room my landlord's been putting off for 2 years. Pulled off a strip of the old floral print and found this thick glue residue underneath. Thought I could just prime over it. Googled it before starting and found multiple contractors saying the glue will reactivate with moisture from the paint and cause bubbling within 6 months. One guy on a forum said he had to strip a whole kitchen twice because of that mistake. Ended up spending 8 hours scraping and using a chemical remover. Should have just asked the landlord to hire someone. Anyone else get burned by this or have a faster way to deal with old wallpaper glue?

2 comments

2 Comments

xena115d ago

You're overthinking this. People have been painting over wallpaper glue for decades and it turns out fine most of the time. A little bit of residue that's been dry for years isn't going to magically turn into soup just because you rolled some latex paint on top. The real issue is people not using the right primer. You grab a good quality oil-based primer and that glue isn't going anywhere. Contractors love to scare you into buying their services, and forums are full of worst-case scenarios from people who didn't prep right. Eight hours of scraping sounds like a nightmare when you could have just slapped on some Zinsser and been done in one afternoon. You probably made way more work for yourself than you needed to.

graceblack15d ago

@xena1 I gotta say, I've seen that Zinsser trick work wonders but it really depends on what kind of glue you're dealing with. Some of that old wallpaper paste is basically just starch and water, and even primer won't stop it from bubbling up when it hits moisture. I've walked into jobs where someone did exactly what you're describing, used oil based primer over residue, and six months later they've got these weird craters under the paint because the glue let go. Scraping is a pain but at least you know it's solid after. That said, if you're sure it's a modern glue and not that ancient animal hide stuff, yeah primer saves a ton of time.