Are you hesitating to apply whitewash paint to your home? This healthy coating resulting from the crushing of limestone stones cooked at ultra high temperature has a beautiful effect which gives both rusticity, luminosity and warmth to your walls. For exterior or interior application, lime paint is easy to apply and has many advantages, including allowing your walls to breathe naturally while being protected from humidity. Let’s take a look at its properties, advantages and disadvantages.
Lime paint: what is it? What properties?
Lime painting is a very old technique already used during antiquity. This paint contains quicklime, itself made up of limestone stones fired at 1,200°C, slaked and then crushed. Naturally white, lime is tinted to adorn the walls and respond to decorative desires thanks to the addition of chromium, iron, copper oxide or cobalt.
Lime paint has the particularity of becoming lighter as it dries. Consequently, to obtain the desired color definitively, it is often necessary to reapply several successive coats, equivalent to a greater quantity of product than for conventional paints.
The different types of lime paint
There are two types of lime paint: aerial paint and hydraulic paint.
- Air lime paint is used as a decorative paint indoors or outdoors.
- Hydraulic lime paint is reserved for protective coatings, especially outdoors thanks to its high resistance to the vagaries of the weather.
The different lime paint preparations
Lime paint can be prepared in different ways:
- Le chaulage : this preparation with a high lime content gives a rustic effect and is preferred for facade paints.
- Whitewash : more diluted, this lime formula gives a beautiful satin effect and can allow a sanded finish with the addition of sand.
- Distemper : even more diluted, it is used for painting frescoes.
- The patina : very diluted, it is used to standardize facades to give them an old look.
- The coating : applied with a trowel, the coating is used as a finishing coat or protective coating in kitchens and bathrooms.
What are the advantages of lime paint?
Lime paint is a painting method with multiple advantages:
- aesthetic painting : lime paint now comes in a multitude of colors obtained using natural pigments. Something to satisfy all desires.
- A versatile paint : Lime paint is not only a decorative finishing product, it is also used as mortar cement and plaster for plastering.
- Easy to apply paint : flexible, even elastic, lime paint is pleasant to apply and requires no prior treatment.
- healthy paint : lime paint is free of VOCs (volatile organic compounds).
- A resistant paint : lime paint is very resistant and durable.
- air permeable paint : its permeability is ideal for allowing your walls to breathe and to naturally evacuate the humidity present, which avoids the risk of mould.
- A waterproof paint : if it allows the air to pass through, the lime paint slows down the humidity which cannot penetrate your walls.
- Comfortable and economical painting : also capable of controlling the humidity of a room, it helps to significantly reduce energy expenditure for heating the interior.
- Insulating paint : this coating is naturally thermal and sound insulating. Also, by adding flax or hemp, these properties are maximized.
- fire retardant paint : Lime naturally resists fire.
What are the disadvantages of lime paint?
Despite its undeniable advantages, lime paint has certain drawbacks:
- A paint whose color fades as it dries : as we have said, tinted lime paint becomes lighter as it dries. As a result, multiple coats must be applied to achieve the desired color.
- A messy paint job : lime paint being porous, it gets dirty quickly. However, it is also easy to clean.
- A complex painting to prepare : the preparation of the lime paint is very precise. If not prepared properly, it turns into flour and can mold over time.
- an allergenic paint : for some people, lime paint can be allergenic. So be careful when handling it.