qt Zinsser 02304 Clear Zinsser, Gardz Water-Based Problem Surface Sealer

I bought a house with lots of old wallpaper. Some of the drywall was damaged removing the wallpaper. I sanded the peeling drywall and applied this sealer before skim coating. It worked great and there's no bubbling.The product is like water, so you need to roll it slow to avoid flinging/splattering. And I wouldn't want to rinse out the brush or roller used, so use a used roller/brush that you don't mind tossing when you're done

I bought this for the intended purpose but I’ve ended up using it in a lot of different ways. It’s a really thin coat but it creates like a shell over the problem surface. I have a really old house and all my wood surfaces are really dry and chalky and chip even after a new coat of paint. I started using this product between layers and as a top coat and it completely changed the finish and locks the paint in. Also works really well over wallpaper or wood filler. I like this product better for lead paint than other primers but can’t speak to the longevity.

Worth every penny. I use over every dry wall repair no matter how small. Skim coated the windowsills and used it in this application also. Goes a long way - don't be put off by the price.

This is basically a huge container of mod podge as far as I can tell. It is thin and watery but soaks into torn drywall paper very well and seals it up nicely. Smell is not too bad. I used it to fix a wall after taking down wood paneling. If you are planning on skim coating over this stuff though, you need to be aware that you will have horrible bubbling problems on any coat of joint compound after your first coat. Your first coat will be fine, but any mud you put on top of that first coat will look like your house is possessed and your mud was mixed with holy water. Not a few small bubbles... more like the wall is boiling and or carbonated. This seems to be because the Guardz seals the wall up so well that moisture/air no longer penetrates. Your first skim coat of mud once dry is porous like a sponge and full of air. When you apply another coat on top, the moisture soaks into your dry first coat and drives the air out of it. With the wall being sealed by Guardz, the air has nowhere to go but up to the surface, creating bubbles. Then you think maybe you can go over the surface with your knife and knock the bubbles down, but the pressure you apply must force even more air out of the substrate because once you knock down the bubbles, another round quickly rises. Apparently this is not really unique to Guardz, the same thing happens if you try to apply mud over any painted/sealed surface. First coat of mud is fine, then all subsequent coats of mud will bubble. I did not know this going into my project and so I coated the entire wall in Guardz and planned on doing multiple thin skin coats. My second and third skim coat were filled with bubbles and the wall looked terrible. I ended up sanding almost all the way back down to my first skim coat and painstakingly spackling in the bubbles with very dry (thick) mud, which still bubbles, but not quite as badly as thin mud. At this point I still had some tiny bubble holes and I was also concerned that my texture would bubble once it was sprayed on. So I applied several coats of a thick drywall primer/surfacer which filled in the bubbles and sealed up the wall well enough so that the wet texture did not bubble when applied. Guardz could have been used for this step as a sealer but it is not thick enough to fill imperfections, so I think it is better to use a primer/surfacer before texturing. Anyway, lessons learned: this works great for sealing up torn drywall paper but only plan on putting one single thick skim coat on top, then sand it as flat as you can get it, apply a primer/surfacer, and texture. If you must do multiple coats of mud, you will probably need to let each coat dry completely and then seal it with Guardz before applying the next coat so that you do not get bubbles.

Must have to make solid wall repairs.

Not sure how i came across this product initially. I was pressed into hanging, mudding and taping a small room in my house for being unable to find someone willing to do such a small job (11x11 room). Hanging rock is pretty simple, time and patience will get you to a good place, taping mudding and finishing requires a feel that is developed with experience usually taking more than a couple of days in a small room. Even the lightest touch w/ sanding the finest paper left small marks and so finally i went to a level 5 finish so my lack of technique in the 4th level and sanding could be concealed as much as possible. So there is the background to this review. Gardz... if you have unfinished drywall USE THIS STUFF. You can thin mud a bit more than is recommended (makes putting on a good finish much easier) and this stuff will BOND all off that thin light mud onto the wall. Edges and seams will not crumble. Pulled edges or torn paper will be bonded back. Openings for utility boxes will be set as if in plaster and will not crumble if you use a dab of it on the edges. The entire wall will be as if its plaster once this is applied and dried. I wish i had put a level 5 on the job i paid someone else to do and used this stuff; my little job is FAR better than what i paid pros to do (i didn't pay for level 5 so this has to be a rather significant difference - no intent to jab a the professional out there). So once i applied it, what i got was a very solid wall/surface, semi-glossy, and showing the imperfections, fuzz, a few sanding marks but overall very solid and firm surface. All of the level 5 was hard as plaster. The directions say this is the time to lightly sand and touch up on your finish. I did a bit of both and applied another coat per directions.Couple things to consider:Coverage. In my limited experience, 1 gallon did an 11x11 room an ceiling all level 5 (2 coats per directions). There was less coverage with the first coat.Smell: Not much but it is peculiar and to some may not be pleasant. i did put a fan in the window just to keep the odor down a bit and isolate it to the room being finished. Overnight, the smell was all but gone.Paint: The pre-paint finish you get once you put this on is satin to semi-glossy. This has an effect on the final paint finish. I used ceiling paint on the ceiling (ultra-flat as typical ceiling paint is) and it appeared to be flat (as it should). Nothing notable there. But i used eggshell on the walls and what i see as a finished product is satin - certainly 1 level more glossy than i had expected from the paint. More gloss will expose more flaws so care should be taken to do the touch up between coats of GARDZ. If you want, really want, flat walls, this may not be for you or perhaps you should limit your job to a single coat of GARDZ - IDK this for sure but its a guess from my limited experience. Coverage: paint goes further once applied. 1 gallon of paint w/ 2 coats covered my entire room w/ a pint or 2 left. Someone w/ a lot of experience may tell me that this is typical but it seemed to absorb less on the first pass.Interested in more: go to utube and search GARDZ. there are many folks who are absolutely bonkers about this product and now i am too.good luck w/ your job.

Ran into an issue with drywall that wouldn't take paint after primer. This stuff did the trick. Primed over this and then painted...Happy with results.