# Forum Home Renovation Painting  painting water based paint over oil based paint-guidance needed

## crazy1716

G'day  
Recently bought a established house. interior walls and ceilings are painted about 15 years back. we observed it is a oil paint. 
we wanted to do paint the entire house with water based dulux paint.
how to get rid of the existing oil paint.  
we are confused a bit. i can't afford to pay professional painters. house is around 21 sqs. some one told me that it will cost around $4000.00
then we thought to do by our self. what are your thoughts experts 
thanks in anticipation

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## GeoffW1

Hi, 
You can do this. The trick will be in the surface prep and choice of primer, as it is inadvisable to apply the acrylic paint straight over the enamel. I would first give the old surface a good wash with a strong solution of sugar soap, and apply a good acrylic sealer-primer-surfacer, before the new coats. 
Here is Dulux' own paint guide  http://www.dulux.com.au/media/502259...150_forweb.pdf 
and note they have an advice line you can ring. Why not, since you intend using their paint? They may suggest a more suitable prep coat. 
Cheers

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## crazy1716

Geoff,
delighted to see your reply. this will boost my confidence levels to paint. i'll go through the url.
cheers

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## stevoh741

I agree with cleaning the walls with sugar soap first but use an OIL-BASED undercoat before the acrylic topcoat. Lately I have been using B.I.N sealer/primer which is shellack based. It is also great for hiding/stopping stain penetration through paint. It costs a bit more but is able to be painted over in only 45min which to me is a real plus. I would NOT use an acrylic undercoat over enamel.

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## chalkyt

All the above. Generally you can paint oil based over acrylic but not the reverse without some proper prep. The BIN mentioned above is a Zinsser product. I have found the Zinsser sealers to be excellent... they stick to anything and cover the underlying colour well. There are shellac, oil and water based versions so it is worth a visit to their web site to find the right product for your application. One of the slight downsides of the Shellac product is that it needs metho for clean up but is unsurpassed at covering stains or strong colours. 
Zinsser are a bit more expensive than other sealers BUT THEY WORK! (My horror story is putting a "brand x" sealer plus three coats of white on a ceiling and still getting stain bleed through. So eventually put one coat of Zinsser plus a top coat for an instant excellent result. i.e. six coats when I only needed two or three done properly in the first place!). I have also noticed that both Dulux and Wattyl now have similar products but I haven't used them

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## keepontruckin

Definately use oil based undercoat. If you apply the acrylic based undercoat on top of the oil based enamels, it will scratch off. Once the oil based undercoat is dry you can apply acrylic top coats over the top.

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