Why commercial repaints are planned work
On a concrete or masonry building the coating is part of the weather protection. A tilt-up panel wall or a downtown brick face has no drained cavity behind it, so the panel joints, the sealants and the coating are what keep water out. The coating is chosen in the category the San Joaquin Valley air district lists for the surface, from the flat, nonflat, masonry sealer and rust preventative families.
Lead rules reach commercial buildings through the construction standard, not only through housing. Cal/OSHA's lead standard for construction applies wherever an employee may be exposed on a construction job, and it names painting and decorating. Scraping, heat gun work, sanding, power tool cleaning, spray painting with lead paint and abrasive blasting are trigger tasks, with exposure assessed and interim protection in place before they start.
Most of the planning and most of the risk on a commercial repaint sit in the access. A two-storey office elevation or a warehouse wall above a loading dock is reached from scaffold, which is erected and dismantled under a qualified person, and no one works on it in a storm or high wind unless a qualified person has said it is safe. Above 7 1/2 feet from an unprotected edge, fall arrest, restraint or positioning is in place.
Summer is the working season and also the constraint. Under Cal/OSHA's heat illness standard shade is provided once the temperature passes 80 degrees and high-heat procedures start at 95, which is why sun-facing elevations are painted early and the shaded faces take the afternoon. Coatings are not thinned past their category limit and containers are closed between coats.
What commercial painting includes
Every face is walked with the property manager: what is painted, what is masked, which doors and rails are included, where the lifts and scaffold can stand, and which hours each tenant can give up. Substrate and existing coating are recorded at the same time.
Open panel joints, failed sealant between dissimilar materials, spalled concrete and rusted metal are dealt with before any coating, because the joint is where a panel wall actually keeps water out.
Where the existing coating may contain lead, exposure is assessed for the trigger tasks in the scope and the pre-job notification is made where the standard calls for one.
Scaffold, lifts or swing stage go up under a qualified person, edges and rooflights on any roof crossed are protected, and shade is set out for the crew through the summer months.
Storefront glass, signage, security shutters, lighting and landscaping are masked, and the day's section is set so each tenant's entrance stays usable.
Walls take their category coating, doors, rails and bollards take a rust preventative or industrial maintenance product, and the product list and photographs by elevation go to the owner.
A commercial repaint is scheduled around the tenants before it is scheduled around the paint. The elevation a crew can work today is the one whose tenant can give up its frontage, and the estimate is written in those sections.
Where commercial repaints are needed
Strip centers and retail pads
Storefront surrounds, parapet faces and rear service elevations, repainted between trading hours with sign bands and conduit penetrations sealed as the work passes them.
Tilt-up warehouses
Panel faces and joints, dock doors, guard rails and bollards, with the joint sealant checked before any coating because the joints are the water line.
Offices and business parks
Two and three-storey elevations, entrance canopies and stair rails, worked from scaffold or lift with the entrance in use kept clear.
Cold stores and food plants
Exterior walls, dock surrounds and painted metal near exhaust and refrigeration, staged around production shifts and wash-down times rather than office hours.
Downtown masonry buildings
Brick and block faces where coatings and sealed joints are the whole weather barrier, and where the parapet and cap detail is checked first.
Ranch and agricultural outbuildings
Painted walls and metalwork on outbuildings at the agricultural edge, where lifts have to be set up on unpaved ground away from irrigation.
Questions about commercial painting
Usually. Painting happens outside the suites, so the constraints are frontage, noise and access rather than the tenant's floor. Trading hours, delivery times and the entrance each tenant relies on set the day's section, and rear elevations and service doors are often taken during opening hours while the storefront is left for early mornings.
The rust preventative and industrial maintenance categories cover most of it. Preparation decides the result more than the product does: loose rust and failed coating come off first, and where the old coating may contain lead that removal is a trigger task with its own controls.
The construction lead standard does: it applies to construction work where an employee may be exposed, and painting is named in it. The federal renovation rule is different, and reaches a commercial building only where part of it is a child-occupied facility built before 1978.
The dry months. Rain days are few from April to October, and coatings are placed and cured without the interruptions the wet half brings. The same months bring the heat rules, so the day starts early and the sun-facing elevation is taken first.
The joints come first. On a panel wall the sealed joint is the water line, so open or failed sealant is replaced before the coating; a coat run over a live joint fails at the joint and takes the surrounding film with it.
Commercial painting by city
A commercial repaint is requested through the stucco, siding and painting page for your city, which adds its corridors, stock and permit authority.
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