Painting Exposed Basement Ceiling (and Ducts / Electrical and Water Lines)
PLIERS
| Posted in General Questions on
I’m planning on insulating and drywalling my walls along with using a subfloor and finish floor. To save money and to have access to heating, electrical, and plumbing systems for future projects I want to leave the ceiling exposed and paint it a flat black. Is this a good idea, is it ok to paint all duct work, electrical wire and water lines? If so, must I spray paint to get good results? I don’t mind taking more time with a paintbrush and roller but will it not look as good?
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Replies
I like the idea of painting but not black unless you have very high ceiling. Black will make an already low ceiling feel even lower. I think the fastest way is to rent an airless paint sprayer and cover anything you don’t want to paint but a brush will work.
Many Habitat for humanity restores collect and mix old paint and sell a nice beige color for little money.
Walta
You'll need a paint sprayer to get good results. With a brush a roller you’ll never avoid little misses everywhere. I’d use a flat white ceiling paint myself, Walter is absolutely right about black ceilings feeling even lower than they actually are.
It’s become trendy to paint commercial ceilings and have all the trusses, ductwork, and wiring/plumbing exposed. None of those utilities have any problems with being painted, it’s done all the time.
Bill
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I'm revisting this question I posted a while back. I'm definetely going to use white. It's about 400 square foot basement, is there a cheap paint sprayer that will actually work that is up to $100. I could rent one but the cheap handheld seems more user friendly for a beginner and small project. I was considering a roller and paint brush not sure how much longer that will take me. It's not a huge area but don't know if I need the sprayer for sure. I considered hiring this out not sure if cost will be comparable to renting or even buying a spray gun.
One 30-40 square foot area has a concrete ceiling with joists embedded in concrete. Do I need a special paint here? I was going to use drylok but my uncle down the street said he used concrete paint on his whole concrete basement. Is there a difference between concrete paint and drylok? Is drylok better in terms of moisture in the air? Same thing with my basement walls it is parged concrete over rubble wall, no leakage of water. So is something like drylok important for air moisture?
A cheap Wagner Power Painter comes in at under $100.00. Available everywhere. For a small job like that, it's just the thing. I'd definitely go with white. I've done both, and white basement ceilings make the whole space much brighter and cheerier. Black is OK if you want that industrial look and don't suffer from claustrophobia.
I would use a masonry paint on the concrete and masonry. Drylok is fine but there are others. These will all adhere better than latex and provide a bit more stain resistance. All of them will eventually fail on concrete over rubble, from moisture and salt buildup beneath the paint film. You could also coat the masonry with a cement-based coating like MasterSeal 581. Much more rugged coating, and has some vapor permeability as well.
When you say masonary paint, do you mean a regular interior/exterior paint for masonary paint and not a waterproofer? I’m leaning more towards either cement coating or what I think you are suggesting. The waterproof paint is making me think it will cause more problems than help because you are trying to trap moisture in wall with a coating that will eventually fail
A local paint store recommended an acrylic masonary sealer followed by paint
The big box store has an acrylic masonary waterproofer as opposed to latex. So in terms of quality it probably goes.
1. Cement-based coating
2. acrylic
3. latex
I never used one but looking at it seems like when you point it up at the ceiling it may not feed the sprayer correctly and jar that holds the paint could easily leak.
If you have hundreds of SQF to paint, I say renting good equipment is the way to go. If not a mini roller will get the job done.
White can be a problem in that the old surface will not be clean and some of it will float to the surface others will mix with the paint and give it a color you may not like.
Either way I would start by blowing the surfaces clean with compressed air.
Walta
A lot of the cheap self-contained HVLP sprayers will work just fine here since you're not doing precision work. You'll likely need to thin the paint a bit, but once you get going, it won't matter much if you have a bit thicker coat in some areas than others. The nice thing about painting a ceiling that has all kinds of "stuff" (joists, wires, pipes, etc.) attached to it is that no one is going to notice a less than perfect paint job. Even the commerical jobs are usually done with a painter in a tyvek suit just walking around on the floor with an extension on the sprayer to get it up closer to the ceiling.
Regarding paint, I would go to a real paint store that actually knows what they are talking about. I have always like my local PPG store, but there are also Sherwin Williams stores and Benjamin Moore stores, along with independent "real" paint stores. Tell them the surface you have, they can recommend a paint that will work -- and the real paint stores will have more and often better options than the box stores have.
I would recommend getting a wand-type duster and going over everything to get cobwebs and big stuff, then vacuum with a brush attachement. That should get things good enough for painting. When you do select a paint, don't go for glossy sheens. I would go with flat, or a step or two up from that at most.
Bill
I called my local Wallhauer, they said they didn't have anything like that. I was disappointed because I have seen a lot of painters use them. Sherlin Williams has a waterproofing paint called luxon xp, it's about 50 dollars a gallon, double everything else. So the prices I saw were:
Drylok extreme: 5 gallon $140 made with latex
Drylok Pro: 5 gallon $165 (this is suppose to be low oder)
Behr dryplus: 5 gallon $140 made with acyrillic paint
Luxon XP: 5 gallon $300 I have can't find what they make it with
Don't know if I need to spend to extra on Luxon, I think low oder drylok sounds like a good idea. I'm not painting the concrete and praying to God water doesn't come through because there is no water seeping in, this is more for potential water vapor in the air. I also wonder if I need an acrylic formula over latex. For the ceiling I think ceiling white paint or another color would be fine
Read some horror stories on drylok causing mold. Maybe I should stick to just the masterseal, more work but probably safer
I don't see how drylok itself coult cause mold. Drylok is just a water resistant coating. Most likely the mold was due to mositure in the air condensing out on the drylok, or possible water seeping through a poorly applied drylok coating. I have drylok in some areas in my basement that has been there over a decade and I've never had a problem.
Bill