LESLIE: Doris in Florida, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
DORIS: What kind of paint would you use to keep mold away?
TOM: Well, paint is not the solution for mold. If you’ve got mold, there’s other causes for it. We can talk about how to paint to cover a mold stain but if you’ve got mold, you’ve got to address the reason for that. What room are we talking about? Are we talking about an interior room?
DORIS: Yes.
TOM: OK. And is there any leak that’s causing this mold?
DORIS: No. Everything’s all in one room and it’s got an A/C. There’s no ventilation.
TOM: Mm-hmm. So you have a lot of humidity, yeah.
OK. So here’s what I would do. First of all, I would wash the surfaces down with TSP – trisodium phosphate. You’ll find that in a paint aisle of a home center or hardware store. And that’s a good way to clean the walls and get them ready for the paint.
The next step is I would prime the walls. And you can use a latex-based or an alkyd primer. And you apply the primer and that’s going to kind of seal in any imperfections in the wall and give you a good, neutral surface upon which to apply your paint. And then you could paint the walls after that.
And you want to use a very good-quality paint; don’t buy cheap paint, because it’s just not going to cover well. So a good-quality paint will do the trick. And I think those steps, in that order, will address that concern.
DORIS: OK. Thank you very much for your help.
TOM: You’re welcome, Doris. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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