What would make newly painted doors difficult to close? Also, is it customary to use flat paint everywhere?

Question

A condo I recently moved into was painted a few months prior. The paint job isn't the greatest, and each time I open and close the doors, it makes a loud sound, or it doesn't close easily. What would cause this? I'm assuming it has something to do with the paint job. Also, it looks like flat latex paint was used throughout the entire condo. Isn't that strange? Already the paint is flaking. Thanks

Answer 1

Sometimes doors that are recently painted will cause rubbing between the door and the jam. This is caused by to many coats of paint, particularly in older doors, where there are multiple coats already existing. or the paint was applied on to thick. You may ask the landlord to have the painters come back, and sand the edges of the door. If they are new doors, sometimes the carpenter did not set the doors correctly. The flat paint is used because it is not glossy and imperfections on the walls will be less evident. The flaking is caused by bad preparation of the surface before the paint was applied. There is probably grease or dirt under the paint which is causing it to flake off. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Yah, really lousy paint job if it is flaking. Means walls were not dry when repainted.
Flat paint was used because it was the cheapest. I would have used semi-gloss. This makes the walls easily washable. Used that once when apartment was occupied by a heavy smoker. Used a sponge mop to clean the ceiling, but it all came off.
Your problem with the doors is because of the lousy paint job. There may be paint in the hinges. This would cause problems. Most likely, though, the paint was laid on with a heavy hand and a full brush. This would actually make the doors bigger, too much paint on the edge, and make them hard to open and close. Look at the top and sides of the door and the frame. Do you see scratches where the door edge meets the frame? Yup, that's the problem. Solution is to scrape the paint off. You may end up going through three or four layers of paint. Lots of luck.

Answer 3

Maintenance in places like this will buy cheap paint in 5-gallon pails. The general idea is just to paint everything as fast as possible, and a flat off-white is usually used for walls, ceiling trim, doors, everything. The problem with the doors is that simply too many layers of paint have built up with all the successive re-paintings. The paint needs to be scraped off the jambs and off the edges of the doors, sanded and repainted. There should be at least a 1/16" gap on the hinge side and a 1/8" gap everywhere else. The multiple layers of paint have filled all this in and now it has to be removed. When I do painting I will paint the ceiling a flat white, the walls a flat or satin off-white, and the trim a satin or semi-gloss white. The problem is to do this involves three different colors and all sorts of edges to keep straight and clean. The maintenance just wants to get it done as fast as possible and as cheaply as possible, and so what if the doors don't close. Do you mean you actually expect the doors to close?? The paint is flaking because they did no surface preparation at all, just slap on the paint, right over all the grease and dirt. Of course it will flake off. The hinges may be rusty or gobbed up with paint. You'd need to knock out the hinge pins and steel wool them down with light oil and to clean and lubricate them.

My way takes a lot more time and is a lot more expensive, but the results are like night and day. If you want it done right, do it yourself. The job you have looks like a very poor one indeed, typical, but poor.

Answer 4

The doors are sticking because the painted the hinges, clean them or replace them it will stop. Flat paint is the worst I "ONLY" use semi gloss it's washable. The paint is pealing because they painted over dirt. They should have painted with KILZ to cover the dirt or washed the walls first like normal people do. The bad thing is that you can't stop the pealing unless you scrape it off and start over.

Answer 5

Did they get paint on the hinges? Or maybe the hinge pins on the doors might need to be lubricated with some WD40. If the noise is coming from the door frame then the door is rubbing on the frame. If it is humid the door is swollen and when it is dryer it will stop making the noise

Answer 6

Too many coats of paint. Buy a can of wood lubricant or rub a candle where it's tight. Flatpaint is right. Gloss should be for the kitchen

Answer 7

the thickness of how many coats of paint you painted on your doors and thickness of paint on your hinges