we have an unfinished basement, with exposed brick walls. they were painted a long time ago, before we moved in. we recently decied to "finish" the basement. we arent doing sheet rock, as its a basement, and it WILL leak a small trickle of water occasionally. we are going to do the epoxy garage flooring instead of carpet. the problem we are running into is when we are painting the wall that is in direct contact with the outside, it has spots that dont dry. I am familiar with the efforesence, but this doesnt seem to be it.

we are painting it with a concrete sealer/primer currently, then on to a latex coat for the color.

it is just the one wall that has wet spots. could this be a humidity/condensation thing? we are thinking of putting a dehumidifire in the basement. but I dont think that will help.

any suggestions?

 

oh, and should we be doing one or two coats of primer?

 

You should be scrubbing the walls with a TSP (Trisodium phosphate) solution. Chalk from the cement in the block will give your paint issues with adhesion.

I would recommend either Dry-Loc (UGL product) or another product that is only sold in 5 gallon pails at Sherwin Williams I believe. The DryLoc is pretty decent stuff, goes on thick to fill cracks and voids, pretty much blocks out all water.

The dehumidifier is a GREAT idea during the painting process.

 

I should have mentioned that in the process. my wife scrubbed down all the walls with TSP. I will try the dehumidifire and see what happens. it seems to be drying now.

what about the ammount of coats? 2?