Testing at five-major league baseball stadiums offers insights into paint and coatings performance While grand architectural and aesthetic considerations for buildings may be less common than in past generations, they still matter to professional and collegiate sports stadium owners. They have important fan bases to consider. Keeping stadium structural steel looking sharp can be as […]
Keeping Coatings in the Game Read More »
This is Part 2 of a 2-part series describing the instrumentation used to inspect the quality of cleaning and painting. Part 1 described the instruments used for determining the quality of cleaning and paint. Part 2 addresses moisture detection. The moisture content of the concrete should be determined prior to painting. In the author’s experience,
Tools and Techniques for Measuring Coating Quality- Part 2, Moisture Detection Read More »
No time for standard concrete slab moisture evaluations? Try these accelerated methods. Let’s face it; we live in an age where instant results matter. Assessing concrete floors for moisture is no different. Most owners, contractors and manufacturers agree that these assessments are necessary prior to installing flooring treatments to achieve quality results. Numerous resources exist to
But I Can’t Wait 3 Days Read More »
When you spend money on a product or service, you expect quality, regardless of the cost. If you purchase the most inexpensive Chevrolet that is made, you still expect quality. While the braking system in the Chevrolet may be less sophisticated than a Mercedes, the brakes better work and exhibit quality commensurate with its design.
Tools and Techniques for Measuring Coating Quality- Part 1, Cleaning and Painting Read More »
While it’s hard to put an exact price tag on what concrete-floor coating failures cost building owners, contractors and retailers each year, two things are clear. First, these failures, nearly all of them avoidable, happen a lot. Second, if it happens to you, it costs too much. Concrete is a complex material and many issues
Why New Coatings Fail on Old Concrete Floors Read More »
A consultant follows the facts to discover why perfectly good, recently applied paint fell from a new steel ceiling and to find the source of the coating failure. It wasn’t like the sky was falling, but when large pieces of paint dropped from the roof deck onto machinery being installed in a newly built manufacturing
Clues to a Coating Failure Read More »
Fig. 1: A number of organizations provide written standards and guidelines for surface preparation Coatings are applied to commercial buildings to protect a variety of materials from corrosion and deterioration, and to maintain the brand and aesthetics of the structure. Three key factors must be addressed during design and construction in order achieve long-term coating
Industry Standards for Surface Preparation Read More »
A variety of coating system choices can be applied to metal roofing, including acrylic, epoxy/polyurethane, and fluoropolymer systems. Specifications frequently call for fluoropolymer coatings, which are considered to offer the best performance in long-term weathering resistance. Roof panels are fabricated from sheet-metal substrates such as steel, galvanized steel, aluminum, and other metals. Galvanized steel (a
Failure Analysis: When Metal Roof Coatings Fail Read More »
This is a continuation of the article published in the January/February 2013 issue of Durability + Design, “Repair The Building Before You Repair The Paint.” In that article, a number of building repairs associated with single-wythe concrete masonry units (CMU) were discussed – repairs that should be undertaken before additional coating is applied, including problems with
Moisture Intrusion: The Achilles Heel of Single-Wythe CMU Read More »
Most of the past Cases from the F-Files have focused primarily (although not exclusively) on coating failures on steel. However, coating failures can and do occur on other substrates such as aluminum, wood, and concrete, to name a few. In this case, a warehouse concrete floor coating was exhibiting blistering only a few months after
The Contractor Who Almost Got Floored Read More »