Patch Is Showing Up (question)

Txbassboy

I had a sub go repair about a 4'x'4' patch in a ceiling (orange peel texture, flat paint) The patch is showing in the final product. What I mean is that at certain angles and light condition you are able to see where the patched area is. The customer agrees that the texture looks fine and there are no visible taping lines around the butt joints. I do not know if the sub primed the repaired area. Is this something that could be a paint issue? If we prime the area (already patched) and then repaint could this possibly fix the problem? Haven't had this happen before!!!

Cole

I have always found that patching drywall is tough, especially if the patches are pretty big.

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Teetorbilt

If it's blended in well physically, then it's the paint. Patches in texture usually show regardless of how good you are. Some just show more that others.

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Txbassboy

so do we need to possibly prime the area to get it to blend in a little better?

LennyV-NHSNOLA

How old was the "old" paint around the patch? Did he paint just the patched area or the entire ceiling?

I agree that drywall/texture repairs are very difficult to match exactly... especially if there are two different texture artists. That's how I explain it to customers. Both Monet and Rembrandt are great artists but they have different styles. Same with texture work except you don't get a million bucks a paint job. :-D

Txbassboy

we repainted the whole ceiling....thanks for the comments...keep 'em coming!!

Mike Finley

It's nice you are trying to go the extra mile and erase this. I'm not really positve you will be totally able to. Perfect and flawless paint jobs can show defects in the right light. Part of the process of hiding things is pre-planning the materials to use according to the light conditions of the final project.

We use a standard line with anything textured or repaired. If you want it perfect we have to texture the entire surface and paint the entire surface, anything less and you will see it if you look hard enough.

Teetorbilt

That brings up another point. A lot of people notice just because they know that its there. 99.9% would miss it without it being pointed out to them.

Not many people notice where I removed the faux beams on my living room ceiling even though the former owners smoked and the fastener holes were just given a quickie patch.

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theworx

All I can say is a patch is a patch. Even though your guy did a great job matching the texture, it's still a patch. Like teetor said most people wouldn't notice it unless it was pointed out to them or they knew it was patched in the first place. Mike is correct, unless you re-texture the whole area it will always show under certain light conditions. You've done all you should have and if the customer wants more it should be an extra (you had the patched area blended in as good as it could be done) ...

LennyV-NHSNOLA

Why did you remove those elegant faux beams?

Txbassboy

Thanks guys....really what I thought just hoping there might be one more thing we could do! This particular customer is a house "flipper" that we have done quite a bit of work for this year so I'm trying to go the extra 1.1 mile for him......thanks again!!!!

Dave-Raleigh

I'd prime the whole ceiling with a shellac based primer to seal it and then paint it again. I don't think you can get around the different absorbtions rates/characteristics without doing this.

Then again you can probably see 4 or 5 thousandths difference in surface thickness if the light is just right. That's tough to overcome unless the taper between old/new areas is at least 2' wide.

Give me a bright light and I can probablyhow you every drywall seam in any house, even through a sprayed popcorn ceiling. Have never seen a completely skim coated job though, Maybe those are perfect.

4x8

Sometimes I noticed that even the size and pattern of texture were alike, a little off from the direction that the original texture was shot would make the patch stick out specially if, like in this case, the patch was on the ceiling and had a source of horizontal light from a window or glass door.

dumplin1078

Too much mud would cause this too. I have seen this problem before when someone has done a nice smooth finish job, but built up the mud too much. It doesn't take very much mud to cause a visible "hump" in a wall or ceiling, and no matter what you do you will not be able to get rid of it.

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Grumpy

As a roofer one of my most common call backs is not a roof leak. It is really an old stain bleeding through a new paint job. Though I am not a painter I have discovered that this is usually do to a lack of primer/sealer before the new paint. I now make it a point to tell home owners when ever they have a painter paint over a stgain caused by a leak, that they should insist on at least one, preferrably two, coats of the killz stinky oil based primer before painting.

I could be wrong but this method hasn't failed me.