Different painters proposing different solutions to calcimine ceiling?

3 years ago

Really hoping for clarity here... We have a 100 year old house with calcimine ceilings. Three large rooms in particular (dining room and two larger bedrooms) are in bad shape, with lots of cracking and some peeling. That said, some areas of the ceilings are fine (some rooms are worse / better than others). All the paint looked good when we moved in 10 years ago, thanks to touchups - we found the painter who did it...

We had 4 companies come in, and ended up with three different proposals, varying in price of course. Each claiming theirs is the way to do it. We have no idea who's telling us the right approach. Help???

(1) Scrape only the peeling/cracked areas, then apply a bonding layer, then repaint over everything. Claim is that the areas that look fine now won't start peeling in a year because they're fine (we've been here 10 years), so only the areas that are cracking / peeling need scraping and a bonding layer.

(2) Scrape everything (the whole ceiling), apply a bonding layer (or two, I forget), then apply the Benjamin Moore calcimine paint as the last layer. Apparently has bad VOCs for a few hours, and also lots of dust from the scraping (the kids and one parent can be away that week, but there will still be cats and one person staying behind in the house).

(3) Most expensive: new sheetrock for all the ceilings. We have some crown molding, so it's quite an expensive solution.

If the cheap option (1) with the least dust and scraping is good enough, obviously that's what we'd want. But not sure I trust it to last?
For option (2), how bad is the dust / VOCs? Does it work long term? We'd like it to look good for at least 12 years...
Would really love some insight. It's so confusing when different professionals all claim with absolute confidence that their approach is the only long lasting correct one...

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Comments (4)

cat_ky
3 years ago
I would go for the sheetrock over the top method. The crown molding can be removed and then reinstalled. Then, once its taped and mudded, and sanded, it can be primed and painted with regular latex paint, and you wont have to worry about any of it ever again.
Susan
3 years ago
Calcimine paint...agh .. The best solution is to wash the loose paint off to minimize the dust. Plaster can be applied by a tradesman that knows how to repair old house plaster. The Benjamin Moore product works well on top of calcimine paint.

Most contractors have no idea about the old plasters and finishes, make a mess and charge a lot of money.
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bry911
3 years ago
I am so far from an expert on this that my best advice is probably to ignore my advice, but I have had to deal with calcimine a couple of times so here are my thoughts.

New drywall is probably the easiest/cheapest if you don’t have plaster moldings. However, if your crown is plaster and can’t be removed then removing the calcimine is probably your best bet. I don’t understand why you need to use calcimine paint in option 2 if you are removing the calcimine. When ours was removed they used a binder and then regular modern paint. There was no need for a calcimine paint after the calcimine was removed and it was pretty easy to remove as it is so much softer than the cured plaster. It was certainly labor intensive, but not difficult.

My, again limited, understanding is that partial removal is not a good idea. A hard coating over a soft coating will usually fail and in this case the areas that have cracked and failed have likely relieved the surface tension for areas that haven’t failed and so fixing those areas will likely just increase the surface tension on other areas and increase the likelihood of new failures in those areas in the future.
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3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
IYes new paint will not adhere unless the calcimine layer is properly prepared. What I did was scrub off what came off with hot TSP or substitute - until I reached a point where no more seemed to be dissolving off and rinse water is clear. I used Zinsser Gardz (a sealer/primer specifically for porous or "problem" surfaces such as this, only one I found that specified "calcimine" on the label). Followed this with a good quality ordinary paint. Have not any issues in 12 yrs. IMHO, you should not have to drywall unless wall has otherwise failed. IMHO I dont think just scraping off is enough, you do have to wash/scrub off however much of the soft powdery layer as you can. I would hope that a thorough wash/scrub is part of their usual prep work for all surfaces, but still I would ask them about that.