Paint Peeling - Plaster too soft?

Dulux sealer should penertrate in.

Some people are watering down sealers or not sealing properly, sometimes not at all but telling the customer.

Ive even heard of painters putting cheap paint in dulux tins.

Was your paint sprayed on? Even the first coat?

Painting wet walls has been rife in the past 6 years.

An example is, if you get a leak in a shower, it destroys the plaster.

There is nothing a plasterer can add that leaches through to weaken plaster.

Residual water in plaster when painted even with sealing destroys plaster.

Painters do water down paint beyond what might be specified, weakening the paint.

Hi All
We too are having exactly the same problem with paint/plaster. We moved in to our newly built home 8 weeks ago & you barely have to touch the wall for chunks to come away. Putting up even a tiny picture is a nightmare & 3M products (which I have used with great success in may other homes) come straight off taking the paint & some plaster with it - The plaster is SO chalky when you rub it & quite crumbly. Has anyone managed to get any satisfactory answers or outcomes to this problem as I just know the builder is going to try & bamboozle us into thinking there’s nothing wrong with the workmanship.

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Unfortunately plaster is not a structural component so your warranty only extends to the maintenance period of the contract,
OT, it's not a good time to be selling your home if you live in Perth Goodluck

Yours sounds significantly worse than some of us. Not sure if that’s good or bad.

Hi All -

Just thought I’d post an update with regards to the horrendous problems we were having with paint peeling & soft, chalky walls. After 14 months doing battle with the builder & numerous tests, it transpired that the PH balance in the white set plaster was completely out of whack. This usually occurs because the plasterer has either put too much lime in the mix or an additive to make it easier to use, with the result that you barely have to touch your walls & they chip & no paint will properly adhere (including sealant). We have had to move out for 3 weeks while they first strip all the paint off all the walls, then put a special solution on the plaster to harden it (after which more testing will be done) & then finally repaint the whole house. All I can say is I am very glad I did as much research as I could, didn’t buckle at the initial attempted intimidation tactics & stood my ground because what would have ended up costing us thousands of dollars isn’t costing a cent & we should hopefully have walls that will stand the test of time.

I'm glad to hear they are fixing the problem. I started this thread over a decade ago, and it's a shame to see the plastering industry is still having the same problems with additives weakening the plaster. I hope they do a good job fixing it so you can finally enjoy your home!

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I finally got my test results back. Only 40% lime instead of 60% and the industry bulletin says under 50% will cause the softness problems I am seeing

pH was also out (which is basically a side effect of the Lime issue)


Taking this report to the builder shortly. cost was around $2000 for the report and lab testing.

Hey amilelka, the industry is now changing all the white set plaster to one that is pre-mixed, nothing to be added but water & similar to that which is used in the UK. It may have taken 10 years but just goes to show how sharing information & joining forces can make a difference - doing nothing never will, so thank you for starting this one!

If you are building in WA ask for Thistle multi-finish.
I used it in my current house and it's a much better product. My plasterer recommended it and I'm so happy be did.
The finish is excellent and hard and no issues with paint.

Hey lathiat, can you please let me know where you got the testing done? There is something seriously wrong with my walls and I would like to work out what it is. I had someone from the Plasterers Association inspect it and someone from the Painters and Decorators inspect. The Plasterers Association said it was all good, whilst the Painters and Decorators said there is an issue but you will spend a fortune and get no where if you try to take it to the tribunal.
I just want to know what the best way to fix it is.
I would be interested BodaciousEm as to how yours comes out and what they used.
Cheers

Hey Dilbert_Perth -

First they do a tape test, putting masking tape on various walls, then ripping it off - if the paint easily peels off then on to stage 2.

PH Testing - scrape some of the white plaster into a small bowl, add a little water to make a thin paste then dip PH testing strip in to mixture to get a reading. This will tell you if you have PH issues.

The other test is for moisture levels. A small hand held machine with a needle like point is pushed in to the wall and is able to read the moisture level, which is then compared to industry standard acceptability.

Being a completely new build, our builder was responsible for undertaking all of these tests but I was quite prepared to get them done independently if necessary. I you want to get some answers before committing to the expense etc, you might be able to get PH test kit & moisture gadget from Bunnings or similar & test it yourself. If I had known the above procedure beforehand I would have definitely done this, in my experience thus far 'Knowledge is Power', the more you know the less inclined they are to try & intimidate you into submission.

If your paint bubbles & peels off, if bits of your walls chip off without barely touching them and you are left with a chalky residue on your fingers when you rub it, then I would dig your heels in & stick to your guns because if we hadn't we would have been left with substandard walls & would have cost us thousands to fix ourselves.

BodaciousEm thanks so much for your information. I am afraid it is too late for me to do anything now, the builder walk away about 6 years ago and left us with these problems, so the cost is all mine unfortunately.
I will do the pH test for sure, I would think there is no issue with moisture now, but after this amount of time, the paint just peels off with ease and you rub your finger on the exposed plaster and it leaves a chalky residue on your finger. The plaster is also really soft and you can rub a big hole in it really easily with your finger nail.
I remember when I was a kid the plaster was rock hard, this is stuff is the complete opposite. I was hoping I could strip the paint and treat the plaster (with I don't know what yet) to make an improvement. I really couldn't stand stripping the walls and re-plastering with our timber floors and shadowline cornice!

Hi Dilbert_Perth

I'm so sorry to hear of your woes & can obviously relate. Take heart, if you find that it is a PH problem there is a way to fix it or at the very least improve it. . . .

First you need to get this stuff that's like 'Contact' self adhesive paper, which you stick/smooth on to the wall (there may be a short wait period but should say on instructions) before you then rip it off & the paint comes off with it too. Once you have done this a coat of phosphoric acid needs to be painted on to the walls & then allowed to 'cure'. From what I understand, once you've done this, another PH test is possibly taken OR seal & paint a portion of wall & then (after a suitable wait time) go back to the 'Tape Test'. . . hopefully there should be improvement.

As I said, our builder had to do all this but I watched, listened & asked questions about it every step of the way as I was damned if I was going to be bamboozled any further. I don't know where you get the supplies from but I am sure someone at Bunnings or similar hardware expertise would be able to help you.

Really hope this helps & that you get some sort of resolution - keep me posted!

Builders are directing painters to paint wet walls.
Sealing in the moisture does not allow the plaster to harden.

Unfortunately there was a campaign to discredit traditional hardwall plaster that has proved to be low maintenance for over a million home owners in Perth.

It has now been realised that this discrediting of a proven product of a million Perth homes was done by importers of new products that have not been proven in Perth conditions, especially on high suction backgrounds.

Moisture content can effect PH test results

As a little update, after some 3 years since I first raised the complaint with the builder and now nearly 7 years since the home was completed - the builder (Ventura, since purchased by BGC) refused to acknowledge any fault with the issue so we filed a complaint with the building commission.

Long story long we are proceeding with the order and the builders course of action which is that they are paying for us to have a removalist remove everything (we need to pack), paying for temporary accomodation for 4-6 weeks, then will strip all paint from the walls, treat the surface most likely with phosphoric acid which will fix the powderiness and somewhat harden the top surface and then re-paint. This specifically will NOT harden the lower layers of the plaster as AS2311 calls out and I have concerns that it will stop the paint delaminating but will not reject still reasonable levels of impact damage that it otherwise could have if the plaster was done properly in the first place. But I am hoping that if the paint binds properly and the top layer has hardened and interlinks over the surface a bit, it will be hard enough to no longer damage nearly as easily and we can just spot fix as required. Unfortunately the "hardness" of whiteset plaster is something that no industry players have agreed to a test on (which boggles my mind) and so that issue is proving difficult to.. prove at least to the Building Commission's satisfaction.

That's the summary, for the gory extra details... we initially had a test showing the plaster's gypsym-to-lime ratio was incorrect (only 40% gypsum), however, 6 subsequent tests by the builder (using 1 company) and 3 done by the Building Commission (using the same company we initially used) all showed the ratios to be "correct" at around 51-55% gypsum.

However the building commission did find and supported that when doing a "tape test" with scotch tape applied to the wall, waiting 1 minute, and then removing it, removed the paint readily in 4 tested locations 100%, 100%, 80% and 50%. And as such they found that the paint work was faulty and unsatisfactory and ordered that the paint is removed and replaced having ensured the surface is then suitable for painting.

The general but stupid situation with this whiteset plaster issue, has been that no one wants to accept fault or find any useful way of testing the plaster for hardness unless the gypsum-lime ratios are incorrect. And so they effectively push the blame to the painters side. The master painters association has tried to fight against this with seemingly no success. Fortunately for us the paintwork was included in the building contract and so that replacement is enforcable even though they "technically" found no fault with the plaster but rather a fault induced by the paintwork having not tested the surface prior to painting. Many people who painted themselves or even had a professional painter engaged get a bit stuck here as they may not want to accept the fault. Though you may still have some recourse.

We tried to argue that the plaster was also soft and incoherent but ultimately did not win that argument with the Building Commission (many extra months were spent on this after the initial proposed order was made). The plaster is powdery, and you can rub with both your skin or fingernail, the plaster completely away. I honestly believe that this part is a bit of a rort, and I think we have a reasonable case should I have decided to take it to the SAT however for mostly circumstantial reasons decided not to do that though wish I could have. The BC refused to test or analyse this, rejected the evidence from my licensed building inspector as such, and accepted the builder's scientist statements which were purely based on the "general" case and neither that scientist or the builders maintenance team etc actually inspected or tested or looked at the plaster thsemvles for that element. I would have been happier to accept their evidence/statements, even if I thought they were wrong, if they had actually.. even looked at it.

They also refused to rule it as faulty on the basis that it is only 1.1-1.7mm thick in every area sampled by all 3 parties and not a single sample is >2mm when the manufacturers instructions for this specific product require a "2-3mm finish" as do the relevant standards. The builder made the case that most homes in Perth are finished to 1-2mm and the thickness itself has no bearing on the hardness of the plaster. They seemed reluctant to rule on that basis alone, since it was not technically part of the original complaint. There is also a bit of a cop out that the national construction code has nothing on whiteset plaster since it's basically not used over east and only in WA. Leaving a weird situation where the relevant industry "standards" are not strictly enforcable although they are "lightly" enforcable in that not following them and then producing a faulty product can be seen as not providing a building service to the required standard. But it would be much more clear cut if it was part of the NCC. Confusing the previously referred to 2005 "HB-161 Guide to plastering" standard was de-registered in 2018 and has no replacement. It's unclear to me who pushed for or what the process to de-register it was. In any case the Building Commission as part of their ruling required the surface be prepared to this standard even in the modern order. But generally seemed reluctant to rely on things from AS2311 the painting standard, which is an actual AS/NZS standard.. and still current. (The HB-161 would have applied at the time of construction and so you could use it to argue bad work, even now, but the requirement to use it as part of the order surprised me)

The only good news seems to be that there are new products coming onto the market which attempt to solve this issue by changing the product to include polymer binders and other elements to basically make it so that the finish can't fail, even if painted too early or even when mixed wrong. Such as Lime Industries TuffCoat. Plus a move towards pre-mixed products rather than having to mix the product in teh correct ratio. That has pretty much only come onto the market in the last 12 months it seems which is a bit of a laugh given this started in the early 2010s but never the less it is some progress I guess. Dry-walling with plasterboard has also become more popular although sadly reduces thermal mass function which is an important part of solar passive design for energy effecient homes.

Hope that information dump helps someone.. I could go on for hours, and hours, about most much smaller aspects of this. My best advice to anyone that has this or any other building issue is
(1) Forget your 6 or 12 month maintenance "service" or "warranty". You are covered for 6 years from practical completion [not key handover!] for most building issues if they are more major and not purely basic cosmetics etc

(2) Get a building inspector to write a report on the issue - for this issue specifically I woudl recommend James from Inspect My Home in WA [I engaged him at the stage of arguing about the plaster incoherence versus just the paint replacement, he was the only person willing to take it on I could fine, and is passionate about it and has handled multiple cases, most others I talked too specifically didn't even want to take it on at worst or at best ]

(3) Don't be afraid to follow the Building Commission complaint process.. the first step to give the builder a "Notice of Proposed Complaint" (NOPC) will force them to at least respond to your complaint within 14 days even if they still disagree - I see many cases of builders sitting on peoples complaints for months or years - that will force them to act. This was the case even for me it wasn't until the NOPC after months and months of back and forth they suddenly took action and had 2 sets of tests and results within those 14 days even though they still refused. While there are many concerns about the Building Commission process and it not really being up to standard which I share, it is still better than "hoping the builder does the right thing". However you really need to pay attention to your complaint schedule, ensure you list each defect as it's own single item, if in doubt split them and don't try to combine issues into 1 item. This in part contributed to my issue I should have split "plaster incoherence/softness" from "paint delamination" as 2 separate items. As this forces them to respond individually to both.

As of 2021 it is no longer a REQUIREMENT that you have your own building inspector report to goto the building commission - they will conduct their own report - which is good as it saves you $1000+ (over $3000 in my case between the 2 reports I engaged) on your own report however they may not always go the path you want and you may have some ability with your own inspector to push further on specific items or areas. This whiteset plaster issue is quite controversial generally and there is no real solid ground on the issue and a lot of interpretation. But for other complaint items that are more straight forward relying on the BC may be OK.

(Note: most of the above complaint process information is specific to Western Australia)

Also you'd think with how much attention this has had, there wouldn't be many new cases of this, but I have seen people on facebook with houses completed in 2019 and 2020 still having this problem. And in most cases paint is left out of building contracts as standards, and people often want to DIY it, with no idea they may need to wait months or more before they can safely paint it. And theres no requirement to warn people of that.

Argh!

Thanks for the recent update lathiat.
Think we are about to go through something similar without builder but we just had PCI and James raised plaster quality on the report so will see what the builder responds with.
I am in shock it still is an issue considering pre-mixed stuff is available now and dept of Commerce issued a bulletin about this exact issue (Building Commising Industry builletin 71) but the issue still remains.
https://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/publicat ... plete-list

Hi, who was the company you got to do the tests? I am having the same problem, 5 years in our new house.
Cheers