A review of Dulux Trade Ecosure Undercoat and Gloss

Following on from my last review for TradeXpress, I am doing one this time for Dulux’s Ecosure range. Specifically I am reviewing the Ecosure water-based undercoat and water-based Gloss. Ecosure is Dulux Trade paint that reduces the impact on the environment even further than their standard paints by 30%. This means even lower VOC‘s.

I have never been a big fan of water-based topcoats and have not got on well with them in the past, so was interested to see how things have changed and improved.

Dulux Ecosure Water-Based Undercoat

I have been using water-based undercoat for many years now and I love it and I use it all the time so wasn’t too surprised to see this in the Ecosure range. Preparation is the same as for any other undercoat, i.e. abrade the surface, make sure the surface is sound, clean and dry. I applied the undercoat using a synthetic brush as recommended for this type of paint, and I was pleased with the results, I was using white undercoat and going over a cream colour. Coverage was good, with good opacity, for a strong colour change a second coat is advised.

I was slightly disappointed with the drying time of 6 hours, this obviously depends on the situation you are working in but the undercoat I am use to using only takes 1-2 hours to dry, so I had to leave the undercoat to dry fully overnight. Coming back in the morning the undercoat had dried leaving a good surface to apply the Gloss too.

The coverage is around 16m² which is only slightly under the standard undercoat coverage. The smell, well being a low VOC and water-based paint the smell was low. I know a lot of people hate the smell of oil-based undercoats and Gloss so will be pleasantly surprised by this paint.

Ecosure Water-Based undercoat comes in pure brilliant white but can be colour mixed, it comes in 2.5L and 5L tins, prices are around £27 and £47 respectively and a colour mixing starts at around £30.
The datasheet for Ecosure Undercoat is 528.

Dulux Ecosure Water-Based Gloss

Like I said in my introduction, I’ve never been a big fan of water-based topcoats so was a little dubious about what this Gloss could do. I applied the Gloss over my previously prepared and Ecosure water-based undercoated surface that I had left to dry overnight.

I applied the Gloss, again using a synthetic brush as advised for this type of paint. The paint went on well, it didn’t skin over too quickly as I have in the past with some water-based Gloss allowing to spread the paint over the surface and getting a good even finish. I would recommend you work fast when using a water-based gloss as if the surface skins over and you go over it you will leave unsightly drag marks in the paint from your brush.

Unlike the Ecosure undercoat where I was disappointed about the 6 hour drying time I was actually pleased about the 6 hour drying time for the Gloss as I am use to using topcoats taking around 16 hours to dry, so a real plus for the Ecosure.

Once I had let it dry and came back to it to see how it looked, I was pleasantly surprised, the coverage was good as was the level of sheen, I wouldn’t of said it had the same sheen level as oil-based standard Gloss but a good sheen all the same. A second coat can be applied to get a deeper sheen if required.

The coverage is around 16m² which is only under the standard Gloss coverage of 18m². The smell, well as expected was very low and didn’t linger. I think one real plus point for many people will be the drying time of this paint.

Ecosure Water-Based Gloss comes in pure brilliant white but can be colour mixed, it comes in 2.5L and 5L tins, prices are around £27 and £47 respectively and colour mixing starts at around £30.
The datasheet for Ecosure Gloss is 527.

In Summary

After using the Ecosure water-based undercoat and Gloss I can see both advantages and disadvantages. Both are well priced and cover similar square meters in comparison to Dulux Trade standard undercoat and Gloss. However, if the Gloss needs two coats to get the depth of sheen, are you losing the advantage of the quick drying time? The fact it has a less of an impact on the environment than standard paint has to be a real plus.

I found this paint to be much better than previous water-based Gloss paints I have tried but was disappointed in the undercoats drying time, I would have preferred it if the undercoat dried in 1-2 hours so the job could be completed in a day.

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