Your paint is peeling. Here is how we find out why

Start with where it is happening

Peeling in one patch on an external wall is usually water getting in. Peeling across a whole ceiling is usually condensation or a leak above. Peeling everywhere at once, evenly, is almost always a preparation or primer failure rather than moisture.

Check what is underneath

Lift a flake and look at the back. Paint coming off clean with a powdery grey residue means chalking or an unprimed surface. Paint coming off with skim attached means the substrate itself has failed and repainting will not fix it.

The usual causes, in the order we find them

• Moisture ingress. A leaking pipe, a failed seal at a window, or rising damp. The paint is the symptom.
• No primer, or the wrong one. Emulsion straight onto new skim or onto gloss will not hold.
• Painting over a damp or dusty surface. Common when the programme was rushed and the skim never dried.
• Too many old coats. Weight and shrinkage eventually pull the whole build off.
• Wrong product for the location. Interior emulsion on an exposed external wall lasts one monsoon.

Paint is almost never the problem. It is the thing that shows you the problem.

What a site visit checks

Moisture readings on the affected areas and a dry control area, adhesion tested by tape and by cross-hatch, the number of existing coats, and the condition of the substrate under them. That separates all five causes above.

Before you call anyone

Photograph the affected areas and note when it started and whether it followed rain. That date is worth more than any description.