How You can Remove Surfactant Leaching

Surfactant leaching is a term that describes the spots or the streaks that appears on the surface of a wall where you have just applied a latex paint. These are sometimes brown in color and sometimes, seems to be colorless. This is also known as the water spotting which is a common problem that you can have when it comes to using latex paint. Although this may not be harmful at all, this is not a good idea to always remember the very proof of water spotting especially during the time that you are beautifying your home. The surfactants are one of the ingredients of paint that can help make the paint’s performance get better especially when it comes to the paint’s color, stability, leveling, flow and stability. However, when the latex paint takes too long to dry, this would cause surfactants to rise to the paint’s surface, thus causing surfactant leaching. This is a problem that most painters encounter when they are using latex paints during the spring and fall seasons. This is because the temperature during the daytime is low and the humidity is high. When the moisture condenses, the spots occur which results to the unsightly streaks on the newly painted wall. There are other causes of surfactant leaching such as pressure washing, applying the next paint coat (without letting the first coat to totally dry up), painting in interiors that are unheated, and applying a heavy coats of paint that will likely result to streaking. Removing the streaks or the spots is not actually difficult. Just be sure you are being careful of what you are painting even after a day or two. With the use of a wet cloth, wipe the streaks out and this may work. A gentle hose spraying may also do the trick. If this is not an effective solution in removing the streaks, you can make use of a dish detergent and water and should wash the staining out. Another way to remove the spots is to use a multi-purpose cleaner. However, in surfaces that re exposed to the weather, it may just disappear in month’s time. If nothing works especially in areas where it is not exposed to the weather, just allow the paint to dry in two weeks to a month. Then choose a perfect time to repaint the whole surface, a time that would affect the drying process of the paint. This will prevent you from dealing with the same problem all over again. To avoid surfactant leaching in the future, choose the perfect time wherein you don’t have to wait for days to let it dry. This will help you in preventing the leaching to occur and save you the money, time and effort when you need to repaint.