painting over polyurethane

What, if anything, can be done to paint over polyurethane oil paint?

The basement of a house I’ve bought for a rental has had the basement walls, ceiling and trim painted with oil polyurethane paint in BLACK of all colors! The only thing I can think of is a stainblocker like Kilzs being sprayed over it but will even this work? I’ve never seen anything like this before! Any ideas?

Thanks!

I’ve had a few experiences very similar to this. I live in Tallahassee and up until 2 months ago I worked for a maintenance company that did rehabs on apartments. Well Florida State is here and you can imagine what the college kids did to the place.

You were on the right track with the Kilz. That’s always what I did. I never was a fan of the spray can kilz. In cases like yours I would roll it with Kilz. With it being black it may take two or three coats of kilz. I know that sucks but it’s the only way we could it get it done. I hope this helped you out a bit.

Back in the '60’s, if we wanted to paint our Surfboards after a major repair,
(like hitting the pier at 30mph) we had to use a resin based paint. This was
tricky because a couple of drops of catalyst were required for the resin paint
to harden.

This could be expensive for a large room…

In a moment of, uh, frivolity, I painted a room in my house black for use as a photo studio a few years ago. The walls were latex, but the trim was polyurethane. When I decided to turn it back into a “real” room, latex went over the latex just fine, and a good quality oil-based white worked well on the trim, even where it gets touched a lot, such as around doors and windows – though it did require two coats. I haven’t had any problem at all with the white paint staying adhered to the poly. I didn’t use any Kilz, or Bin, or any of those stain-blocker/primers – just made sure there was no grease of any kind on the poly.

I used a brand of paint called C2; it’s made in Canada and only one independent hardware store has it here, so I don’t know how easy it is to find. Great stuff, I’ve used it in eighteen rooms now.

Just my two cents – but you may in fact be better off using the Kilz if you’re ultimately putting latex on the walls.

I believe Home Depot has a chart showing which primers work best for certain situations. If not just read the back of the cans, or ask.

Even if you’re covering black, I’d just go with one coat of primer, one coat of paint and then, if necessary, a second coat of paint.