Picture-perfect prime location, beautifully painted walls &amazing and elegant furniture, who doesn’t like a beautiful home. The accomplishment of these necessities especially painting exterior and interior walls to make home beautiful is no easy job, it demands both time and great efforts. Sometimes, despite of the fact laborers so hired have worked really hard while scrapping loose paint and preparing the surfaces, the paint on the walls start flaking and cracking in less than a year’s time.
Truth be told, in todays’ expensive world, hiring skilled labor force is no easy, it demands great labor charges. And watching flaking and cracks over the walls can certainly be a devastating experience, it will be like watching hard earned money going in vain. This unfortunate experience often leaves a clear cut question in home owner’s mind, exactly what causes hairline cracks in paint? Regrettably, there is no 1 precise and clear cut cause for paint flaking. These cracks in painted walls can embark as small but prolonged conditions can worsen the small cracks.
Let’s check out, what causes hairline cracks in paint?
The cracks that appear on the painted interior walls are usually referred to as stress cracks. The common reason for these cracks is over the time shifting and settling of the building. The inevitable movement of the ground beneath the home is the prime cause of the hairline cracks in the paint, whereas unsightly cracks can happen due to seasonal weathering. These hairline cracks in interior walls can be fixed temporarily by implying a quick patch and paint job. There are multiple DIY patch and paint jobs available over the web to fix hairline cracks in interior painted walls.
What about the exterior walls, what causes hairline cracks in paintout there?
The prime conditions wherein cracks in paint are observed on exterior walls are
a. Intercoat Peeling
· Causes of Intercoat
Peeling Improper preparation of the wall surface prior to the painting session is one of the main reasons for Intercoat peeling. The semi-covered or the covered areas are more susceptible towards Intercoat peeling as these surfaces do not receive enough rainfall for rinsing off the airborne pollutants. Thereby, the pollutants remain affixed to surface and the painted layer starts loosing up and eventually peels causing hairline cracks.
· Recommended Treatment
The recommended treatment is prevention of the cause, which means the wall needs to be washed and scrapped properly before the application of paint. b. Solvent Blistering
· Causes of Solvent Blistering
This very type of hairline cracks is very rare and usually caused by action of action of environmental heat over the applied paint solvent. When paints rich in solvent film are applied in direct sunlight, consequently the topmost layer dries too quickly leaving the solvent trapped under the dried layer. This causes blisters on the painted wall, which over the time turns into hairline cracks. This problem is experienced usually with the darker paint colors.
· Recommended treatment
The treatment to avoid the occurrence of hairline crack is to fix the blister as soon as spotted. Checking the prolonged condition of blisters can rightfully prevent hairline cracks. The blisters can be worked by scrapping manually and then sanding to the next layer and thereafter painting with color. c. Wrinkling
· Causes of Wrinkling
Like Intercoat peeling, wrinkling is another case of faulty application of paint. The basic cause of wrinkling is drying of topmost layer before the underneath layer. The reasons which cause speedy drying of topmost layers are, extensively thick application of paint, application of the next coat before the previous coat is actually dry, inadequate brushing technique and application of paint in much higher temperature than advised by the manufacturer. The prolonged condition of wrinkling often causes hairline cracks.
· Recommended treatment
The treatment to avoid hairline cracks in this case is to prevent wrinkling or fixing the issue as soon as observed using patch and paint DIY kits.
Precisely, the question what causes hairline cracks in paint can be answered through points mentioned below:
· Application of poor quality of paint which results in poor adhesion.
· Application of oil based paint over the earlier applied latex paint.
· Using extensively diluted paint.
· Application of paint without proper preparation of surface.
· Environmental conditions causing speedy drying of paint.
· Over the time paint loses flexibility and becomes brittle consequently is unable to contract and expand depending on the environmental conditions.
· Application of successive coats before the previous coats are properly dried.