Painting A Water Tower

haskl33

I am helping a friend out painting his water tower at his place of employment. Was wondering from professionals what to use.
The tower is about 30' high and 80' round (cylindrical).
To remove the paint - should we scrape and then power wash?
- what should we do with the rust spots?

To paint - Should we use a primer? what kind do you suggest?
- And then what type of paint? any specialty type or brand?

any information will be helpful.

I'm helping out becuase I have all the scaffolding and pressure washer. I am not a painter.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Wolverine-Eric

We make products for this... so... I'm going to be really generic here to avoid breaching the Terms of Service...

Just for the record, this recommendation is what is the industry standard. We have better options which I'm not going to list... I'm going to assume this is a steel tank and not concrete... Recommendation for concrete is different...

For water towers (outside)...

First... SANDBLAST... (black Beauty) Don't drive the salts/sulfates/nitrates into the steel... White Metal Blast... 2-3 mil anchor profile!!!

Zinc Rich Primer

100% Solids Epoxy Midcoat 12-20 mils

Aliphatic Polyurethane TopCoat

Aliphatic Polyurethane Clearcoat (Optional)

For the inside you MUST use an NSF approved coating...

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Some things just shouldn't be mixed... like... Kids & Paint

http://www.wolverinecoatings.com/Pic...kids&paint.gif

slickshift

I hope your friend isn't a sales associate at Wal*Mart or something
That's quite a project
Around here, private property or not, we couldn't do doinky to that w/o some EPA paperwork

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Quote:

Originally Posted by ModernStyle I have never used this crap before and I pray to the paint gods that I never have to use it again, I would rather use Behr

Richard

Holy cow, I remember shootin' black beauty all day in the submarines. I used to like the aluminum shot too....and I understand the "white metal" comment....that was some hard work

haskl33 - basically slick told you about the legal side of it, you need to be totally in check with a job of that scale and....wolvey told you what to steps to take and what products to use

whatever you guys do, DONT WING IT...it's important to do it right
I have to be honest, you suprised me a bit when you mentioned rust spots and then asked if you would need to prime....sort of a no brainer

just powerwashing and sanding won't cut it on this job, just so you know

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Rich

tkle

John Deere green?

firemike

What Richard said!

I remember a few years ago an industrial complex I was working in had hired a crew to paint their water tower, not very big, about the size you are working on. 3 guys on spiders and bosun's chairs painted it in two days - start to finish. 3 days later it stormed... Sheets of paint, some as big as a sheet of letter-sized paper blew all over the complex and adjoining neighborhood. A long drawn-out legal affair developed from that one.

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-Mike-

Woz the Painter

And you should prime the sandblasted areas on the same day they were blasted, otherwise oxidation could occur.

plazaman

This is def. an industrial job.



Id take wolverines Recommendation, he seems to know alot about coatings (something i wish i knew) . He is also right about sandblasting, producing a profile. The last thing you would want is to have coating failure because of poor prep.

Scaffolding is 1, then you must think about containment, you cannot blast in open air. How old is the tank? If its old enough, it may contain lead, which is another can of worms.


How will coatings be applied, brush & roller or spray?

If sandblasting isnt an option, have a coating inspector inspect the current coating and recommend a top coat.

If you need blasting done, im here !

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