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If your are thinking of painting your facility, keep in mind that all paint is compromised, according to Bob Schrock of PPG Industries, who discussed Paint Issues: A Facility Managers and Building Owners Perspective with members of the Central Ohio IFMA chapter October 8 at the Confluence Park Restaurant.
“If you ask for a certain property in paint, I will give it to you. However, in doing so, you must be willing to give something up,” Schrock said.
For example, he said that while flat paint will minimize the seams in drywall, it is porous and traps dirt. If you go to higher sheens to minimize the dirt, the drywall seams become more visible.
Schrock said, All paint is made up of four main components—pigment, which contributes color and hiding power to the coating; a binder (resin) that gives the coating the ability to adhere to a substrate; solvent, a liquid into which the binder and pigment are dispersed or dissolved; and additives that give the paint certain valuable performance properties.
The resin that is used is the most critical element in the paint, he said, and while there are multiple types of resins, the two generic classes are water based and oil based. In the water-based family, acrylics are the most durable.
“From a facility managers’ standpoint,” he said, “we are starting to reduce the number of oil-based paints that we have either by government regulation or preference. So, we have to come up with water-based products to duplicate or simulate the ability to perform as well as the old oil-based products did. These new acrylic enamels do this in hardness, in abrasive resistance, in dirt resistance, and without the odor and smell.”
Other advantages of acrylic paints are: Good color/gloss retention, good adhesion, excellent flexibility, easy to apply, good dry times, compliant with volatile organic compounds (VOC), and lower odor.
These paints are considered excellent for school corridors, correctional facilities, cafeterias, and as replacement for solvent born industrial alkyd enamels in virtually all commercial applications.
Schrock said the odor in paint is from the VOCs—“from the solvents that make up one-fourth of the paint that we can’t get out,” and manufacturers are guided by federal government rules that prohibit making products above a certain VOC level.
“In January, the level of VOCs in paint will be limited to a greater degree than ever before, and oil-based paints as you know them will be basically unavailable in Ohio. This means you will have to go to water-based paints, which means you will have to compromise,” he said.
Zero VOC paint is coming and will be available in flat paint, egg shell,
semi-gloss paints, and primers that “hide well and wash well” and will be available in hundreds of colors but at a higher cost, perhaps an extra 20 percent.
At the beginning of his presentation, Schrock said, “I don’t want to imply that wallcovering isn’t important. So, please support your local wallcovering manufacturers. They are great people, and wallcovering is a decorative coating just like paint. We are an option.”
He also urged—jokingly—that facility managers “be nice to your paint salesman.”!