chip pan fat stains

[L gardener L]

a friend of mine recently moved into a new house. The wall has some marks on it, she now knows this is chip pan fat stains. Although it has been cleaned and painted over the stain is still visable. Does anyone know what she can do to remove the stains and stop them comeing through again.

[Buenchico]

As long as there's still oil in the coating of the wall, it's likely to show through. The only guaranteed way to remove it would be to remove the plaster (or whatever other coating the wall has) to a sufficient depth so that no oil remained.

I'm not actually recommending such a procedure. It would be far simpler to buy a few cheap wall tiles. These would both cover the offending stain and provide an easy-to-clean surface. (If oil can get into a surface then so can bacteria).

Chris

[woodchopper]

There are proprietary stain sealers available from paint shops that will do the job - have used them before with no failures.
As for putting tiles over the stain have had several tiles gone loose after tiling over oil residue - make sure it is cleaned off 100% before tiling.

[ethandron]

a tip from a decorator we know, for any stain that keeps reappearing through emulsion paint, is to paint undercoat over the stain first, just a light layer. wait for it to dry and then emulsion as usual. we've done it a few times and it's worked everytime. i would guess that if the area has been thoroughly cleaned, it would work over chip fat stains. i'd give it a go anyway, nothing to loose.