I just bought a new house and moved furniture in. I noticed that the paint is really thin because it bruises easily, i.e., I cd see the cement behind it when I accidentally peeled off the sticker glue from the wall. The builder said in the contract it is 2 coats of paint. Should there also be an oil sealer before the paint is applied?
How to one detect how many coats of paint are used in a newly built house .
painting
Related Topic
- What type of paint and how many coats should be used to paint a radiator
- How should masking tape be used when multiple coats of paint are being applied
- How to handle old wallpaper over top of lead paint
- How to get rid of white lines in wall corners showing up after painting
- Drywall – Removing high gloss paint from walls
- How many coats of exterior house paint
- Do I need to use an oil-based primer on old woodwork
- Ceiling fiberglass getting yellow because of bad primer
Best Answer
Crappy/crumbly paint is usually thin as well... and 2 coats thereof may (and often do) not cover or resist well. So it doesn't really matter how many coats are in the contract if the paint (or layer thickness) is not specified therein.
(Illustration from the previously linked article.)
Most industry tools/methods (destructive or non-destructive) can only measure total paint thickness, not count layers. The most reliable way to inspect/count/measure individual layers is a destructive method using a PIG (paint inspection gauge) using the ASTM D4138-07a method. The gauge cuts a v-groove that is examined using a built-in microscope, which looks like this:
(Image from tcq.eu.)
It takes considerable operator experience to distinguish layers of the same paint though... so if you're looking to sue or force them to repaint, better hire an expert to do this determination for you.
I've sanded a few things (to repaint) myself, and some of these had 3-4 different paints that were easy to distinguish while the sanding was going on; basically you get a much, much wider V-cut at the sanding edge... but I could never tell with the naked eye how many layers of each paint might have been there (and had no reason to get microscope).