Industrial Painting – Facility Ceilings
Industrial painting often involves dirty, dusty, bedraggled, and crummy ceilings. And often, if those ceilings are in abandoned parts of manufacturing facilities, then they can become worst than what was described. And that’s what we’re currently dealing with.
A general contractor secured a project to update a large facility. And then that general contractor reached out to us to clean and paint the ceilings. And being part of our business, we submitted a price, and was awarded the job.
But the ceilings were monumentally dirty:
Normally, our first option is to power wash. But in this case, with all the dried good in the area, and the ceiling joists and trusses being made from wood, we decided to air blow instead.
Typically, we air blow with a compressor. However, The compressor hose was becoming such a nuisance, trying to drag it through the trusses and joists, that we decided to try another option:
We armed out painters with (3) electric leaf blowers. Although the air was not as compressed, these tools proved to proved adequate power to remove just as much dirt as the compressed air, without the hassle.
Now, if the dirt and debris was well adhered, then we would have continued using the compressed air cannon. But this dust was loosely residing in the ceiling. So the leaf blowers served a great and practical purpose in this air-cleansing.
Now, once the debris was adequately removed from the ceiling, then it would become time to actually perform the painting.
Since we did not cover the floors with plastic, we wanted to use a dryfall product. And because the project was indoors, we could use an alkyd base paint, and benefit from its superior adhesion.
Here is a picture of all the action. As you can see on the left-hand side, there is a large curtain wall hanging from the ceiling to the floor. Since the project is to occur over 75,000 square feet, it’s important to dissect the project into multiple phases. And not only was the curtain wall hung, there was plastic wrapped around all the lights and the sprinkler heads.
Something else you’ll notice in the picture is the dryfall paint on the floor. This is the perk of using dryfall. When you deal with joists and structural steel, you’ll be dealing with a lot of over spray. That over-spray has no place to go, but to the floor. So, instead of sticky paint, we use dryfall, which dries before it reaches the ground. This eliminates the need to cover the floors with plastic. And it makes clean up as easy as broom sweeping the area. And in this case, it was a lot of broom sweeping.
Overall, this industrial painting project turned out very well. We developed a solid system, for each phase. So as this project progresses, we can continue to use that same system to maximize project efficiency.
PennCoat, Inc. has been providing industrial painting, commercial painting, epoxy flooring, and polished concrete services for nearly 30 years. Our experienced installers are trained and equipped with the proper knowledge and tools to ensure that every installation is installed efficiently and safely. PennCoat, Inc. provides service to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware. And we cover York, Lancaster, Philadelphia, Chester, Montgomery, Baltimore, Harrisburg, Dauphin, Bucks, Berks, and other counties in the surrounding area.
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