Lesson 13
Reading Paint Failures
Read what a paint fault is telling you from where it is, when it appeared and what's underneath, before you repaint.
Read where, when and what's underneath
Three faults in one house: a chimney breast that keeps peeling, small blisters on a bathroom ceiling and a window board crazed like crocodile skin. Each is a fingerprint. It tells you something by what it looks like, where it is and when it appeared.
Where: one wall or every wall? Low down, high up, round a window, over a repair? When: the next morning, the first time someone showered, after the first winter? What's underneath: the back of a flake (lesson 1) shows which layer let go.
A symptom starts an investigation; it rarely names the cause on its own. But it usually narrows the list to one or two, and that's enough to decide what to check before you repaint.