Painting & Decorating

Dulux Soft Sheen Emulsion going onto walls with thousands of tiny bubbles. Why?

Anonymous user 09/03/2024 - 3.04 PM

Dulux Soft Sheen purchased from Homebase. The white base had solidified around the tin lid when the assistant opened it. The assistant removed a string of solidified gunge. Colour mix was applied and then vibrated/stirred. ... As I applied this paint two things happened. I had to keep on picking out small bits of solidified white base. No big problem. As the paint went on - using a Harris medium pile roller - it left thousands of tiny bubbles. As a result of that, I had to go over and over to flatten them out. First coat, pleased - solid colour. Second coat, same problems with 'bits' of solidified white base and thousands of tiny bubbles. Picked off the solidified white base 'bits' and rollered out all bubbles. Now, the colour is very solid and uniform. There are no tiny lumps. However, when it dried it dried to a visible non-uniform sheen. That is very disappointing. Was the base paint too old? Evidence: lots of solidified white paint? What caused the thousands of tiny bubbles? (I have never, ever, had that happen before) Could that be evidence of old paint becoming too thick? Or is it evidence of something else wrong, such as my technique? Did I inadvertently cause the non-uniform sheen by having to roller out these blasted bubbles? I am thinking of adding a small amount of water to what I have left (could the white base have thickened a bit with age?) and try a third coat. After that I am stuck. I have never had a sheen dry non-uniform. New update 17/09/2019. Thanks for the advice guys:-) I contacted Dulux Advice, who have been very helpful. I was also able to send them photos of the paint finish. They wrote "From what you have described it would appear the paint has been contaminated in some manner. This usually happens in storage if the paint is affected by weather or excess air entering the tin." They immediately offered a replacement voucher (its in the post). From the batch code + bar code they were also able to tell me that the tin of base paint was manufactured in 2016 (and sold to me by Homebase a week ago!) I'm now trying to find out if that length of time in storage is considered 'normal'... I must admit I am quite shocked. I'd have thought that somewhere like Homebase would get through stock pretty quickly. This has been a bit of an eye-opener for me. And made me very wary of Homebase, but - unfortunately - I've chosen a colour that Dulux Decorator Centres do not supply:-( Cheers, keith