Am I the only one who sees people using the wrong primer on drywall?

I was helping my buddy patch some walls in his basement last weekend and he pulled out this can of oil based primer for the new drywall. I told him that stuff is for wood and metal, not for fresh mud and paper. He said his dad always used it and it worked fine. But I’ve seen so many jobs where people slap oil primer on bare drywall and then the paint peels off in sheets after a year, especially in basements where the humidity changes. The water based PVA primers are like $12 a gallon at Home Depot and they soak into the paper right. Why do so many folks still grab the wrong stuff? Has anyone else ran into this with a buddy or on a job?

4 comments

4 Comments

rosepark17d ago

Buddy of mine tried that exact thing on his garage walls a few years back. Used oil based primer because his old man swore by it and he had a leftover can. Looked fine for about 8 months, then the winter hit and the garage got damp. That paint started bubbling up in big patches, like the whole wall was sweating underneath. He ended up scraping half of it off and having to start over with the right PVA stuff. Cost him way more time and money than just buying the cheap primer in the first place.

ivan46217d ago

That's a good point about the humidity, but here's something else nobody's mentioned. A lot of people don't realize that oil based primer can actually seep through the drywall and stain the paper on the other side, especially if you spray it on thick. Then you get these yellow or brown blotches showing through your paint later on, and you're stuck trying to cover them with a shellac based primer. I've seen it happen on a few remodels where the painter used oil primer on the back side of a new wall for some reason. Plus, that oil primer takes forever to dry in the paper, like a day or two in a basement, while the PVA stuff is ready to paint in an hour. It's just asking for trouble with dust and dirt sticking to it while it sits.

mason_murray816d ago

Wait but if oil primer was that bad why do pros still use it for certain jobs? Ive seen guys do whole houses in oil primer and never had those bleed issues. Maybe you just gotta know what youre doing with it. The dry time thing is real but if you got a proper dehumidifier running in a basement its dry in 6-8 hours not 2 days. Plus PVA primer doesnt do jack for sealing in stains or tannins which is a bigger problem than some ghosting on the other side of the wall nobody sees.

wade_anderson16d ago

Real talk though, nobody mentions that PVA can trap moisture way worse than oil if your drywall isn't bone dry.