Ok to use hair dryer to speed up paint drying process? (paint is on kitchen wall - regular indoor paint)?

There is a yes and no to the hair dryer. Paint stores use hair dryers to quickly dry small paint samples, latex paint in particular. However this works on small samples only. If you expose the paint to too much heat, you cause what is known as mudcracking, when the surface of the paint dries faster than the bottom and ends up creating a dry lakebed look. You also run the risk of causing the paint to bubble or actually burn if you expose it to enough heat. On a large area a hairdryer is pretty useless, the amount of effort you will put will not be worth it. If you are using latex paint you run the risk of loosing adhesion on the wall surface by heating, it might possibly peel, not immediately, but it will eventually. Alkyd or oil paint needs to penetrate into a surface and fast drying it with high heat will prevent that, again possibly causing peeling.





Some things you can do to speed the process are:


1.) using a dehumidifier. A dehumidifer draws moisture out of the air, in turn this will give dryer air to pull the water medium out of latex paint, speeding its dry without risk. Dehumidifiers will not work on alkyd/oil paint.





2.) Ventilation: The more air you give paint the more 'medium' is pulled out of it. The medium is what is used in the paint water, oil, etc. The better the airflow the more fresh air is provided and the faster it can dry. Open a window (if its raining, there is too much moisture in the air and neither paint will dry), use fans to get air motion. Fans must be used to pull the air out of the room not blow directly into it. By pulling it out its getting rid of medium, and not kicking up dust and debris. You can also use your central air if you have one, it helps, but only if it has a built in dehumidifer.





3.) Temperature: Paint will not dry when it gets cold, as a golden rule if its too cold for you, its too cold for the paint to dry. Pumping the temperature up helps, but even if you make the kicthen a sweat box, you still need airflow to get the medium soaked air out.





Hope I helped. Good Luck.





P.S. Latex paint takes roughly 6 hours to dry, work your day around that, paint in the morning, leave a windo cracked open, and go to out or too work. When you come home its already dry.Ok to use hair dryer to speed up paint drying process? (paint is on kitchen wall - regular indoor paint)?
no you will risk streaks in your paint finish if you have a dehumidifier that really speeds things upOk to use hair dryer to speed up paint drying process? (paint is on kitchen wall - regular indoor paint)?
No good. The paint underneath will remain wet and you will only be drying the outter paint. Just have to let it dry itself.
No, use an oscillating fan in the room.
why the he-l not??
I'm assuming you have a small space to dry. If so, sure it is ok to use a hairy dryer, but a box fan would work much better, faster and cover the entire area. Plus you don't have to ';man'; a fan.
no the paint will run.do you have a couple of fans you can put in the kitchen and turn on that will do the trick and help the drying time.do not use a hair dryer.
No. that is ok if your are willing to stand there and blow each little section! How about an electric floor fan? Seems that would be less trouble and cover more area.