PVA (polyvinyl acetate) primers will sometimes get poor reviews for being cheap primers. These primers may be inexpensive, but they do a lot of things - well.
Primary Uses
PVA drywall primer is a time-tested primer used for:
1. New drywall.
2. As a spot primer on drywall repairs.
3. Or as an inexpensive first coat on a two coat paint job.
PVA primers are not a good choice for wood trim, or exterior surfaces, and they are not intended as a bonding primer for glossy surfaces. The following are situations where PVA primers are a good choice.
New Drywall
PVA drywall primer has been used for years as a first coat sealer on new drywall, it is my favorite type of primer for this purpose. See Painting New Drywall. A good PVA drywall primer used by many professional contractors is the Sherwin Williams Promar line of PVA drywall primers (Promar 400 and 200). The Promar line of PVA primers are inexpensive and do a good job of sealing new drywall.
The minimum paint job on new drywall
- The least number of coats you can put on new drywall and get an acceptable finish is probably two, and you will need to use flat paint as the finish to make this work. This paint system is very common among new house painters: one coat of PVA primer and one coat of latex flat.
Using sheen paints on new drywall
- Sheen paints will require two coats over the primer for good sheen uniformity. The first coat of sheen paint will have an uneven appearance. You will be able to see “flashing” (uneven sheen) and the highs and lows of the rolling stipple will have a different sheen. A second coat will even out these sheen fluctuations.
PVA: A better spot primer
PVA primers are less likely to cause the flashing and shinny spots that other primers do when used as a spot primer. This is why many painters use PVA priimer for spot priming patched areas (drywall repairs) on walls and ceilings. It is far faster to simply spot prime the drywall repair itself than to prime the entire wall or ceiling.
While you may not categorically state that all PVA primers will not cause flashing, many (most?) will not. I have always had good results with Sherwin Williams Promar 400 primer when it comes to minimizing flashing when spot priming over drywall repairs.
Cheap first coat
When you know that you will be painting multiple coats in order to get adequate hide and coverage, it sometimes makes sense to use a PVA primer as the first coat. PVA primers are inexpensive and will save you some money on a multiple coat paint job in certain instances. A good example of this is when the finish coat is a deep tone color. In this case, you would use a gray tinted primer to block out the previous color and act as a neutral base coat for the low hiding deep tone finish paint. See Painting with Deep Tone Colors.
Not a bonding primer
PVA primers are not -as a rule, good bonding primers. This means you should not use them over glossy paints and hard-to-stick-to substrates. See Deglossing. See Bonding Primers. Normally, you would use the PVA primer over a flat paint or deglossed paint, in situations where you want to use it as a cheap first coat.
Related Articles: Painting New Drywall
Spot priming
Many primers, particularly the stain blockers, will cause shinny spots in the finish paint when used as a spot primer.
The only way to get uniformity with stain blocking primers is to prime the entire wall from breaking point to breaking point.
If you need to use a stain blocking primer on a ceiling, plan on priming the entire ceiling, or you will have “shiners”.
PVA Drywall Primer
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