Oil paint on latex paint on oil paint!

Questions & AnswersCategory: Latex Paint Over Oil Based PaintOil paint on latex paint on oil paint!
Mechelle asked 10 years ago

My painter applied latex paint on top of oil based paint on the trim, which promptly began to peel as the new flooring was installed. I asked him to remove the latex and repaint with oil based paint. He did not remove the latex, but painted over it with oil based paint and now if I bump into a door, the paint chips through the oil and latex layers down to the original oil based layer. How do I prep the trim to repaint with an oil based paint. The doors are Masonite with faux wood grain.

1 Answers
Crowder Painting answered.

The new layers of paint needs removing. You have 2 choices; scrape and sand or strip.

Scraping and sanding will work for most wood trim, including the door frames, but won't work for the doors. Using a paint stripper will also work for all surfaces but is a lot of work. Plus the doors could be very difficult due to the embossed wood grain.

To be honest I think it might be cheaper to replace the doors with new and maybe even the trim. From a painters point of view all of this work is expensive, installing a new pre-hung masonite door is fairly inexpensive.

If you get all of the new paint off and back to the original finish the prep is straight forward – prime everything. It is hard to believe that a little cleaning, maybe a little sanding, and the application of primer is all the painter needed to do but it's true. He probably put on 2 coats of latex paint anyways, if one of those coats was a good oil base primer there wouldn't be any problems.

I hope you didn't pay this person for low grade work.