Do I have damp

[andlee01]

I just moved into a house. When painting a wall, the old paint flaked off in large chunks and made the wall impossible to paint over. I will need to remove all existing paint before I can re-paint. After sanding back to plaster, I can see areas of discoloured plaster which I thought was damp. However, the survey on the house did not indicate that there was damp present in this wall (it's an external wall, made of solid masonry and finished with plaster on the interior).

If the wall is not damp, what else could be caused the paint to peel off like this?

 

[KenGMac]

There are several possibilities.

1/. If the property was vacant for some time prior to you owning it, the walls may have attracted condensation?

2/. If really old existing paint that paint could be Distemper ?an old much used paint type but does not tolerate over-painting at all.

3/. A test [not all that accurate] is to tape a piece of clear plastic film and form into a tent like structure on to the wall and see if there is any indications of water forming on the inner surface of the film.

You can consider purchasing a "cheap" moisture meter from on of the large DIY outlet stores and run a check on this wall.

Ken