Even industrial environments have commercial areas. Offices, conference rooms, hallways, they’re all considered commercial areas. And in this pharmaceutical packaging plant, there is an area that has the profile of a commercial setting.
I was contacted by a plant engineer. He had a project where his facility needed to repaint the walls, window frames, doors, and door frames in their clean packaging room. I was curious, because the existing coatings seemed to be in good condition. But after further investigation, my contact revealed that the current coatings are not compliant with the ISO rating they are trying to achieve.
What they need is an epoxy coating that can handle a detergent washing. Their current coating is an acrylic, and it doesn’t hold up to the detergent wiping that the walls receive. So in order for them to register as ISO certified, their walls need a new product applied.
But, as you can see in the picture, this would not be an easy task. There are pieces of equipment and machinery all throughout the room. And because it’s a clean processing area, paint cannot come in contact with the equipment. So, before any painting can occur, each piece of equipment needs to be covered with 1.5mil plastic.
Once the equipment is covered, then it would be time to address all the cabinets, desks, and wall fixtures obstructing project access:
And since it the painting contractor is unaware with how to handle the wall units, cabinets, desks, and electronics, it would be up to the customer to remove all of the obstructions prior to starting work.
Now, this project isn’t only walls. It’s also making the window frames, door frames, and hollow metal doors compliant with their ISO objective.
As you can see in the pictures, these are not easy surfaces to paint. They will require close attention to brush strokes, and other detailed work. Because you don’t want to get any coating on the kick guard or panic wear on the door. And with the windows, you don’t want to get any paint on the window panes.
Overall, if this area was not filled with the equipment and obstructions, this could be coined as an ordinary commercial painting project. However, due to the industrial equipment in the area, this project has elevated from standard gypsum wall board painting, to full-blown industrial painting project.
But that’s not to say it can’t be done. But the proper estimate, and take off needs to be executed so that the installers can have adequate time to complete the project under budget.