Hi all -

Can anyone tell me why the paint in a newly painted room (two to three coats applied within a day and a half) appears to be cracking. (I don't know if spackle was applied to these areas first).

Thanks for any insight.

It may depend on what type of paint you used. Was it latex or oil? Whether spackling compound was used first shouldn't matter as long as it was primed first. Whatever paint you used, I would be sure to use a good primer first before applying the paint.

From Latex paint over oil base paint? - Old House Forum - GardenWeb

"Latex goes over oil just fine.

The problem is in getting good surface adhesion since oil (especially older stuff) is often very smooth.

Light sanding or washing with TSP (the real stuff, not the substitute) will provide a good surface for a bonding type latex primer.

Oil over latex is often a problem.

Latex paint is more flexible than oil paint, and putting a hard film over a softer film can often cause cracking problems. At the very least the hard film properties of the oil paint are compromised.

You can make it stick, but if you already have latex it is better to stick with latex.

Some of the newer acrylic paints work as well as oil (alkyd) used to, and even have full gloss formulations now.

They often need a little Floetrol to level out nicely though."

Depends, you didn't give much info so here are a few things to consider:
Newly textured walls were not completely dry before painting.

"2 or 3 coats in a day and a half" if the room was cold and each coat wasn't allowed to dry you can have cracking problems as the previous coats "mature" under the new coat... this can cause cracking.
Cracking in appearance only but wall is smooth, this can be caused by contaminants on the wall such as crayon, or wax.

Cracking just in spots indicates the substrate had something on it, and the problem isn't tempiture...
But like I said, you didn't give much info so I'm just shooting in the dark