My wife insists that all the painting we do on this shack be done with a first coat of "primer". I believe primer is simply just another paint type, same constituents, but priced higher, to garner money. She firmly believes primer contains stuff which allows for better longevity of the finish coat. What is your consensus? Frank
Not an expert painter by any means, but most walls don't need to be primed unless a lighter color is being applied to a darker color. ( bleed though ) For holes in wall, repair, finish sand, then prime to seal. What I have found is that primer allows the new paint to 'stick' better to some older paint. I am by nature lazy when it comes to 'prep' work, so if it has been a real long time since that wall was painted last, I prime it. Hope this helps, just my experience.
I have paint and primer for my outside porch. I just get overwhelmed when I think about doing it all. There is a lot riding on it so I want it to look good. I painted it once before, but didn't use primer and I don't think it ever looked very good, even when it was first done. Oh well, I guess I will be doing it some day. My first goal is to pressure wash though because there is some mold that needs to be washed off. It is one of the things that we need to do.
I don't think primer is needed if you are painting unpainted wood. Maybe it helps, but I don't think so. Primer comes in handy when you are re-painting something to a different color, particularly if you want to change a dark color to a light one. It would take several coats to paint a brown wall white, for example. With primer, you can do that, I think. I've never tried.
My husband has learned some knowledge on construction as per the continual house repairs we have done since 1996. For metals, I think the primer is imperative for it protects the metal from oxidation which causes rust. Some years back, we discovered that our 5 years old roof was suffering rust. We did a repainting (by hiring workers) and the primer, not to forget. But after 2 years, the roof started to show rust again. And that's when we learned that we should have used epoxy primer which is more expensive but more effective according to the worker we had hired this time. But after 1 year, the rust is starting to show again. Now, it looks like the primer is of no use against rust?
I consider primer useful for walls with stains that won't come off after several cleaning attempts. Now there is paint and primer sold as one unit a lot more expensive too. So how dumb do they think we are