Should I Use Oil or Water Based Paints in the Decorating Trade?

This is a very common question I get asked whenever I'm in decorating, and there are a couple of things that are important when addressing this issue. First of all, where do you live (and i mean "in the world") now even though I live in Northern England, you need to sort that issue out depending on the climate where you live. Where I live we get warm mild summers and damp winters, therefore using water based paints in the winter when the temperature is damp/cold is not really a good idea, the water based paint will simply never dry unless you are working inside with a good source of heating available. Likewise in the summer time if you're trying to get oil based paints to dry quickly, you can add driers but it's not really a good idea when the paint can dry naturally in the heat.

The 2nd issue is how quickly do you need to get the job done, obviously water based paints will dry much quicker in the summer time, but will struggle when temperatures drop. Whenever I've had small jobs to do, then water based undercoats are a blessing to a decorator, you can go from bare wood to the finished article in a matter of a few hours applying just 2-3-4 coats. Now talking about water based undercoats is just one area of the water versus oil paints debate, there are gloss, satin, emulsion, stain and eggshell based paints too, and these all have their own advantages and disadvantages within the decorating trade.

So let's start at the beginning. If I wanted bare wood to dry quickly and the temperature was decent (not freezing) then I would use water based primers, however if the temp was freezing then I would have to use oil based with driers added. (Terebene Driers are a compound/mixture that can be added to oil based paints to speed up the drying process - especially worth having if you must paint outside or even inside in freezing conditions) Moving up to the undercoat stage it would depend on how big and how quickly the final coat had to be added. Larger jobs usually will use oil based undercoats as the next day it is recoatable, however many jobs inside where people are in the houses when the decorator is there insist on water based paints for the drying time and the fact that the odour is less noticeable.

For many people who decorate the odd room every now and again, I would personally use water based primers and undercoats. These are easy to use, store and have a decent shelf life if stored correctly, and are recoatable in a very short time. The exception to this would be winter time when unless the painting had to be done, I would simply leave until better weather came along.

I hope this has helped you understand the difference when using oil or water based paints and when to use them in the decorating trade.

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