Paint problems and fitting the toilet - utility room (part 9) 

As a plasterer myself, the skim plaster has blown due to weak pva mix, should have blue gritted the wall before skimming, needs redoing.

Needed to uses that blue grit stuff on the paint

Zinsser is brilliant stuff! I originally bought some to cover a silk paint so I could apply matt and it did a brilliant job. 18 months later, no cracking or peeling. Since I had plenty left over, I thought I'd try it to prime over the knackered paint on the canopy over the front door - not really the right stuff for the job but no point wasting it - worth a shot. Did a brilliant job of that too! Used it for all sorts now - it just works! Pricey, but you definitely get what you pay for.

I stopped using water based paint, especially so called exterior paint and have gone back to oil based paint. I spent ages restoring my 120 year old window frames and casement using water based paint, and had to do the job again a year or so later. Fortunately, I have access to portable scaffold towers courtesy of my daughter in law's roofer brother, but even so, I'm in my 70s and my wife was none too keen on my working at height. Having completely stripped any traces of water based paint and repainted four large windows with fresh primer, undercoat and two top coats, I'll move before it needs doing again.

Blue grit is the best thing to prime those walls.

While I normally say I prefer short videos as they match my attention span, watching you with my feet up and a whisky in my hand is so interesting and inspiring. And the guitar riff at 11.00 was brilliant. 🌞

Hi Andy The dreaded PVA fix all , which in some cases can work but to rely on it holding plaster to a wall is really pushing the boundaries . But you have over come the sort comings of other trades to complete the mission 😂. Best wishes as always. 😀👍👍👍

I know of a hotel renovation where they had problems with the plaster, eventually the works were 3 months late, or even more, and there was a dispute between the building company and the owners and caused the hotel company going into administration. ( it was a newly founded company who took on 2 major renovation works within a year and huge debt)

SBR instead of PVA which re-emulsifies when wet, when painting over silk emulsion use a white soft sheen as an undercoat then go over with your choice of matt.

It's great that you share these problems you're having. I've recently started DIY on an old property for the first time. It's reassuring to see even you dont always find it easy.

Great videos man! Ive been watching this whole bathroom fit from the start. I'm looking to buy myself a house next year and will be doing most of the renovations myself! Watching these videos inspires me and also acts as a rough guide. I know your videos aren't meant for guidance as such, but they're awesome and your 'step-by-step' approach is really helpful! Thank you so much!

We used a product called thistle bond over old painted walls before having the walls reskimmed. Its like sand mixed into a bonding agent and gives the plaster a key to grab onto

if you want to be sure the skim is not going to blow on a old wall give it a coat of blue grit yourself and a day or 2 later check with a scraper that it has adhered properly

I hate flexys on soil pipes, but sometimes needs must.

@3:24 Yellowy glossy paint is probably an oil based paint. There's two ways to cover properly without removing the old plaster. One is to sand the old paint surface with 60 grit to rough up the surface and give new paint something to adhere to. The other is to paint over with a base primer like B.I.N or Kills or whatever you across the pond have. Two coats covers just about anything from dirt, grime, crayon, old paint, and dinners thrown at a guy by an angry girlfriend (yes, I've had to do that in one of my rentals) 😂!

I swear by dulux super matt watered down for my mist coats, never let me down

very good work !

Peel stop is great stuff. Good for priming filled areas as well to stop it showing through.

Always informative

Thanks Andy and Mrs Mac. Another excellent video with lots of handy tips. Will bookmark this one as well. Plus I’ve taken a note of all the paints you mentioned. I have some shinny walls and ceiling that need plastering so will prime or hack them before the plaster gets to them. Not risking it 😂. I’ve used peel stop, it’s excellent. Love that whole range of paints by zinsser.

Like the longer videos when you're explaining what, why and how. Please adjust the toilet seat, one of my pet peeves is seats that don't stay up and you have to perform gymnastics to pee and hold up the seat! 😂

Great series this one. Can't wait to see the next one where you'll reveal whether or not that cat flap prevents cats that are on fire entering the house.

I had the weird yellowy paint in my 1930s semi too. Weird old paint. I took hours and hours sanding it off.

It's looking good. I honestly hate doing plumbing, almost as much as drywall! LOL

Thanks for covering the paint and plaster problems Andy, it's good to hear some solutions and also to know it's not just us ! Hope your plaster hangs on OK, I think I might have been inclined to bite the bullet and redo it but fingers crossed for you - don't upset the Missus ! We had a problem here whereby applying a thinned matt paint over the builder's magnolia by roller fetched off not just the magnolia but also large areas of the skim. Bloody nightmare, what stopped it bonding well to the plaster board god knows, but was not impressed , went back to using a large paintbrush then rollering only the top coat ! 😤😡

We had something similar on our walls, chipped all the loose stuff off and then blue grit everything, plasterer stuck great. Blue grit is mega, used it before all my plastering in my house.

Thanks for sharing! Which plaster did you use for the jointing and taping?

I only ever use a couple of dabs of CT1 or similar to hold the tank to the wall, not had a problem for lots of years.

We had the same glossy paint in our 1970s house and literally had to scrape it off before skimming the walls.

What do you use to fill the joints and holes in the plaster board before painting?

If you want a good quality primer tikkurilla optive primer is my go to.

We always scratch into any old but sound shiny painted plaster if skimming. Also use Blugrit so that’s a keyed surface which is keying itself into the scratched areas if that makes sense. As far as trying to re-adhere and blown plaster… nope, it’s got to come off.

That's interesting. we had our Bathroom done by a prof. painter. And he very much told us plaster would not hold on such surfaces. Or the kind where they put chalk on the walls in former times...

Hi Andy, I’ve mist coated 3 rooms and ceilings with that exact same wickes paint. We didn’t have any problems with the normal paint going on over the top even though it was powdery. One room is still just mist coated and still a little powdery. It was first the first time I had mist coated fresh plaster so just assumed that was usual.

Hell Andy. You couldn't make that up regarding the paint 😱 I bet a lot of us have learnt from your misfortunes. Thanks for being the guinea pig on this one 😁😁👍

Great video Andy, it's a tricky job with those plastic "L" brackets to screw the toilet to the floor I did a bad job My fault I miss lined it .Done it in the end, Great video mate ,you are doing well .Take care see you soon😀🚾🚹🚺🚻🪣⚒🔨🔧🛠🪛🔩🪚🗜 👍👍👍

I might sound sound silly but, when it comes to the loose plaster, you could possibly drill a load of small holes in areas where the plaster is still loose and inject pva?, if it worked when you poured it then it's feasible it will work 😢. Hurray, someone likes my idea 😆, also, I only mean drill until you hit the original wall, the channel, @propper diy, gave me the thourt, another fantastic channel I follow 😀

Love Zinsser paint.

that pale yellow paint looks like the stuff our staff hallways used to make it 100% wipe able ,like a very high translucent gloss, maybe its exterior weather paint i dunno or specialised indoor paint for surfaces that are bound to get scraped on a lot

good job! Is there a reason you didn't aim for the soil pipe to be level with the toilet waste at 17:40?

Blue grit or selco pre grit is what I’d have used… I use it as standard on any paintwork

I'm a big fan of Zinsser paints. Every one I've used has done exactly what it said it does. Using their "all coat" paint for the first time on some exterior bits tomorrow and not expecting any issues. The only time I had a failure was using Zinsser BIN to prime a painted contrete exterior windowsill. After a few years the top coat peeled off but on checking the directions it specifically says "spot use" only outside so that was entirely my fault. That's been stripped and recoated with Bedec Multi Surface Paint. With the plaster I'd have been tempted to paper it with lining paper myself to hold everything together then paint over that

I've seen plumbers setting toilets on a bed of silicone/adhesive

Stopped using Wickes paint 10-15years ago before the paint was changed and was rubbish. Now only use either Leyland or Johnstones. Only use a green stablizing solution behind plaster now.

Maybe glue some mesh against that wall, or wallpaper? Maybe that'll hold the plaster together? Anyway, nicely explained, I feel I could hook up a toilet myself now! really curious to that vid you mentionned :D

Its ridiculously expensive but blue grit. Great stuff

Blue Grit. Get those plasterers back to rectify that.

Sure loads have said it Andy, but blue grit would have sorted that 👍

It will a nightmare mate once you drill, get the plasterer back or bloody same him about the great work. My ex business partner was a plasterer and we always used sbr for loads of things, good to adding to cement and adding to back of paving slabs. I love sbr and sware by blue grit

It sounds like the skim coat has “shelled” (IIRC) which means it hasn’t adhered to the substrate. 3:1 PVA is great for emulsioned walls as it has half a chance of bonding to the wall. I’ve heard good things about SBR, blue grit and Bond-it pre grit. For the faff involved it would have been easier / better hacking the wall back to brick and then either dot & dabbing or bonding it out properly. In terms of tape and fill, I started a loft bedroom doing that, got sick of do a bit, let it dry, sand/scrape any high spots, fill, wait to dry etc. I decided in the end to learn to plaster at night school (Peterlee college), 10 weeks, 2 x 3 hours per week and I can now skim walls and ceilings to an acceptable standard. Paint lifting is my nemesis as well, Johnstones trade covaplus or Leyland super Leytex high opacity paints seem to work a treat. Aluminium undercoats helps to keep stains at bay.

Re shiny surface. 120 Grade orbital sand walls then blue grit shinny surface prior to plastering. Blue grit is a nightmare to get off glass or any shiny surfaces. Welds on. Was a thing to gloss paint walls, and i unfortunately had to apply gloss to walls years ago for an old guy. Horrible job. PVA is useless over gloss surfaces.

Just wondering Andy - Is there a requirement for the soil pipe coming through the wall to the toilet to be significantly lower than the soil outlet on the Ceramic unit. I would have thought that the straighter the connection the better? I notice you took a measurement in 'marking out part 2'.

Quite honestly I think Wickes branded products are absolutely terrible. Yeah it may be cheap and sometimes do the job but it’s really not worth using if you are going to end up paying twice later down the line. I also had problems with Crown white emulsion as well.

Need to remove the drummy skim coat and prepare to substrate correctly. Also waterproof membrane required above the basin

Does the building inspector have to take the loo on a test run? 😄

I made the mistake of using wickes own paint once, it’s awful stuff.

Do you do toilet then floor or floor then toilet?

I wonder if the yellow paint was too greasy/oily/glossy for the plaster to stick. Maybe if the surface was keyed prior to plastering?

They should of roughed up the paint surface by sanding it with a 120 or 100 Grit sandpaper. That would of provided some teeth so the new plaster could properly bond to the paint surface. The other issue is that thew plaster does not have the proper percentage of lime and sand as the old plaster that had a lot more lime and sand in it.

flexi pipe for a toilet seems like a really bad idea

I've just redecorated my lounge and used that same Wickes paint and it was bloody awful

@4:23 Don't cheap out on using a quality paint. You get what you pay for and not all paints are the same.

We moved into our “newly decorated house” and every single wall has had the chalky paint! Do i really have to peel stop every wall?…..

I would have blue grit that 👍

hello andy.

Hey Andy, Zinsser Gardz is brilliant too. Great for chalky surfaces. Love Leyland primer 👍🏻

Wish this video had been around when the new plaster failed on my living room wall. Plasterer blamed decorator, decorator blamed plasterer. All complicated further by the feckin awful 'egg-box' crappy 80s internal walls. I hate those walls.

Sticky situation you are in there Andy. Do you risk Mrs Mac beating you to death or do you redo the whole job? Difficult choice. LOL. Good luck.

Even a slight scratching/key would have made a massive difference

Also when you paint new latex water based paint over existing semi Gloss or even eggshell paint you need to rough up that surface as well with a minimum of 150 Grit Sandpaper is actually better and wipe off the paint dust with a damp rag, because paint will not stick to paint dust or Drywall mud dust either! Also buy a good quality primer like KILZZ or ZINSSER to paint over the old LATEZ PAINT color because the primer will provide teeth for the new paint color to stick too! If you’re painting vinyl water base paint over it oil base paint, it will not stick you’ll need to wrap up the surface like I described above paint it with oil base primer then you can paint water-based primer over oil base primer Also buy a good quality 9” roller and a retractable/extendable paint stick they provided leverage to properly roll on paint. Don’t use the short cheap wood paint sticks, invest in a good aluminum or metal paint stick from Any big box store I’ve had mine for over 20 years and it still works. It’s made out of metal its extendable That’s what I did when the previous owner painted a disgusting baby poop brown in a semi gloss or an eggshell that was so slick and smooth. It wouldn’t of had any teeth to allow new paint to stick to it. That’s why you must rough up all semi gloss eggshell or even satin based paint so the new paint will have teeth to stick to the old paint.

I'm guessing that because videos are still coming out that the plaster stayed on the wall and that Mrs Mac hasn't buried you under the patio 😂

Wouldn't muck about, get the plaster off or use 9.5mm plasterboard over it.

Crown vinyl paint

If the plasterer didn't do a proper job with the plaster not being attached to the wall, shouldn't they come fix it? I don't think it should be on you to fix.

Sorry to say that plaster is going to crack, flake and fall off....you will end up having to replaster the lot. You can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear, as my old mum used to say.

Why didn't you call the plasterers back to redo their work?

It's always so nice to pay relatively big amounts of money to someone who says they know what they are doing and end up with a product that is more broken than it was before they did anything. And the worst thing is you can't get your money back in these kinds of situations. I would be so angry if that happened to me. I detest people that do this kind of job and cause more hassle and stress, and then they assure you it's going to be good even if you have your doubts. I just recently had my bathroom remodeled because of water damage and oh boy there was so many mistakes I had to point out and things were still done hastily and after that I still had to patch up places or there would be water leakage behind the drywall again. There are still a lot of cracks on the tiles and how they did the grout is so badly done that there are missing grout in many places and they tried to put silicone where they didn't want to fix the missing grout, but the silicone just ended up scraping away after a while etc. Workers do things so hastily most of the time that there are always something wrong after a job, and many times there will be problems again. And btw I'm a tenant in this house and I have had to fix a lot of things that weren't fixed properly by the workers. I have talked a lot to the guy that coordinates all these jobs in here and he knows I know what I'm doing and just brings me supplies if I tell him some small thing needs fixing and I do better job than the janitors here. Some janitors have even broken things, so if it's a job I have permission for, I just do it myself. Btw I live in Finland. It's not so bad here as it is somewhere else, but I just don't have a lot of tolerance when it comes to doing something badly so someone has to do it again. It's just a lot of extra work and materials.

Must have gone well then as you’re not dead 😂😂👍🏼🧱😊

Well I now know what those two holes in the bottom of my toilet are far.. a bit of a shame my bathroom fitter clearly didn't

Cheap paint does that.

Lining paper does the trick on crap walls, hides a lot of mistakes/blemishes and takes paint well too, as long as you know how to get a good seam.

Pva is rubbish, sbr is far better, but I'd have blue grit that wall. Get him back I'd say, that plaster is shot

Shouldn't really use Wickes at all nowadays. I cancelled my account.

So many DIY channels have started uploading their home renovations as content. Is this supposed to be interesting?