Bathroom paint peeled off like wallpaper - what do I do??!

[Tiddlyompompom]

Morning all,
Please could someone advise? I started repainting my bathroom yesterday, sugar soap scrubbed the walls, then started painting the edges around fixtures. I decided to sand down a bubbly patch of old paint, and the paint started to peel away from the plaster - it came off in a huge strip, and I could see that the rest would come off v easily. Worried so rang DH who's away, he said to peel off any that would come away, saying that maybe the plaster underneath was damp, so to just pull the old paint off. I have no idea if this was the right thing to do!

My bathroom is now a war zone. Two thirds of the walls are now back to bare plaster, and I've got a huge bag of sheets and strips of paint.

I'm repainting with Dulux Mouldtec paint, and it said on the tub to dilute with 10% water if painting onto bare plaster, so I did one wall with that, but it was 3am by then so thought it best to stop......

Is painting it straight away the best thing to do? Any ideas why the old paint peeled off like that? Is it ok in fact??

Aaaargh! It was supposed to be a quick job, and a nice surprise for DH when he got home - no chance now!

Please and thank you.... :)

do you think the wall was ever papered? Traces of old paste will prevent paint adhering.

There are a few people still left who think you should put PVA glue on plaster before painting. This is also wrong and will prevent the paint from touching the plaster.

Most likely, as it was a bathroom, persistent humidity and condensation have made the walls damp and this has attacked the paint, especially if the first coat was a non-vinyl matt emulsion intended for new plaster.

Now the sun has come out, ventilate the room well to help the plaster dry. Yes, your first coat should be thinned with water to help it soak in, and should preferably be matt. If the plaster has a shiny polished appearance it may have been overtrowelled, plasterers usually do this through lack of experience or if they have fallen out with the decorator. You can take the polish off with very very fine abrasive paper, but clean off all the dust very thoroughly before you paint.

Modern plaster should usually be pale pink when it is dry. Chocolate patches are wet; white patches are usually filler.

p.s. if the house is 50 years or more old, the walls might have been painted with distemper. This is very unsatisfactory to try to redecorate, but comes off with hot water and a scraper. It smells of dead horses.

PigletJohn THANK YOU!

No, the walls haven't been papered, and weren't 'polished', and it's a newish extension on the back of a Victorian terrace. [shocked] at the dead horses smell!

I think you are probably right about the humidity - the ventilation fan doesn't work efficiently so we always have the window open, no idea if the previous owners bothered. The paint felt slightly plasticky when it peeled off, maybe they used weird paint. I def don't think they diluted the first coat as it hadn't soaked in at all, the plaster is fairly pristine underneath.

DH has very kindly brought me a scraper so I can get the rest of the old paint off, I can see my weekend will be spent mainly in the bathroom... :(

Thank you very much for your reply, much appreciated!

I bet the old owners paint ed with eggshell. I was told to do thisa in my bathroom in my first flat. So I did. Oh dear, poor whoever it is peeling off my well intentioned gunk umpteen years later.

Ooh yes, possibly Agnes, it is quite a shiny eggshell-like finish. That would make sense...
The walls are always dripping after a shower, even with the fan on and window open, and takes ages to dry out. There's also underfloor heating which we had on in the winter, that helped.
The paint I'm using eventually is a proper Dulux bathroom paint, so hopefully it won't be so sweaty!