Exterior Painting in Boston, MA - Picking the Perfect Process and Products for a Busy Boston Bakery

Have you ever vis­it­ed Boston? It’s a beau­ti­ful city, famous for its sports teams, rich his­to­ry, edu­ca­tion­al Free­dom Trail, and con­fus­ing traf­fic patterns.

It also has a bustling water­front scene. As entic­ing as the coastal high­lights may be (who doesn’t love seafood?), the salty air and ever-shift­ing weath­er cre­ates an envi­ron­ment that is prac­ti­cal­ly lethal for met­al sur­faces. Cor­ro­sion is a con­stant threat. This makes it all the more impor­tant to make sure that your paint and coat­ings are up to the task of pro­tect­ing your prop­er­ty. After all, as soon as cor­ro­sion gets a toe-hold you can have a spread­ing issue on your hands.

This par­tic­u­lar project led us to a water­front bak­ery in Boston. Our client’s exte­ri­or sur­faces were tired, and wore tat­tered coat­ings that had obvi­ous­ly giv­en up a while ago.

And so, we got to work.

What Kind of Sur­faces Did We Prep and Paint?

This project involved a com­plete exte­ri­or repaint, includ­ing gal­va­nized met­al pan­el, cor­ru­gat­ed non-fer­rous met­al pan­el, steel, and CMU block.

Let’s take these one at a time and dig in for a clos­er look at the work we did. But first, we should also add that as part of the prep process we pow­er­washed the sur­faces with our 5000 PSI pres­sure wash­er. This not only thor­ough­ly cleans the sur­face, but also helps to remove any dirt, loose mate­r­i­al, salt, or oth­er residue that could get in the way of a qual­i­ty application.

We also paint­ed their stone curbs with traf­fic yel­low, adding to the safe­ty and effi­cien­cy of the lot.

Now, back to those oth­er sur­face details.

Paint­ing Cor­ru­gat­ed Met­al Panel

• Primer — We used Omnithane Series 1: Mod­i­fied Aro­mat­ic Polyurethane Primer, from Tne­mec. The name may be a mouth­ful, but the prod­uct is fan­tas­tic. It’s water-based, low-VOC (lit­tle to no odor), high-dis­per­sion, and mildew-resis­tant. Per­fect for the envi­ron­men­tal needs of this metal!
• Top­coat — Also from Tne­mec, we chose Endura­tone 1029: HDP Acrylic Poly­mer. It offers the same ben­e­fits as the primer, cre­at­ing a durable finish.

How Do You Paint CMU Block?

Well, we used Envi­ro-Crete Series 156: Water­borne acrylic. This appli­ca­tion is a flex­i­ble, breath­able elas­tomer­ic coating.

We just heard you ask an impor­tant ques­tion: what exact­ly is an elas­tomer­ic coating?

Essen­tial­ly, it is a high­er-build (thick­er) prod­uct that is ide­al for mason­ry. It’s tough, resists mois­ture, and can stand a lit­tle sur­face move­ment and flex with­out skip­ping a beat. It can be tricky to apply, but when done prop­er­ly the results are outstanding.

Paint­ing Gal­va­nized Met­al — Bring­ing the Cold Stor­age Freez­er Back to Life

First, this freez­er need­ed to have the exist­ing, decrepit coat­ing com­plete­ly removed. After that, we applied the following:

• Primer — Our prod­uct of choice here was a water­borne, acrylic resin adhe­sion primer from RD Coat­ings. Why is a primer like this impor­tant? Well, gal­va­nized steel is, for lack of a bet­ter term, slick! A spe­cial­ized primer is need­ed to grip onto the sur­face and offer a strong foun­da­tion for the next coats.
• Mid­coat — We used RD Elas­tomet­al, an acrylic poly­mer that wards off cor­ro­sion like a pro.
• Top­coat — This also was a prod­uct from RD Coat­ings, and was specif­i­cal­ly a satin, acrylic poly­mer paint that offers both dura­bil­i­ty and col­or retention.

Anoth­er fan­tas­tic attribute of these RD Coat­ings prod­ucts is that they offer a flex­i­ble, rub­ber­ized, elas­tomer­ic coat­ing (there’s that term again). This is ide­al for a high-traf­fic area like this where peo­ple will be stream­ing in and out, bump­ing the sur­faces, etc.

Con­sid­er­a­tions When Work­ing in a Busy Environment

This is Boston. Nav­i­ga­tion can be tricky in the best of cir­cum­stances, let alone when you’re deal­ing with vehi­cles, equip­ment, and work­ing hard to trans­form exte­ri­or sur­faces in a busy setting!

On top of that, we had these fac­tors to navigate:

• This loca­tion was direct­ly next to the Boston Ship Repair sta­tion where they are ful­ly-func­tion­al twen­ty-four hours a day, sev­en days a week. We worked in and around their sched­ule, cre­at­ing a seam­less strat­e­gy that worked for everyone.
• Our client is a busy bak­ery, so we had an active park­ing lot to con­sid­er, employ­ee shift changes, and their shut­down sched­ule as well.
• We had to work with the Boston EDIC and Rede­vel­op­ment Authority
• Weekly/​daily work permits
• Pub­lic street access
• Aer­i­al lift access
• Remem­ber that fick­le weath­er we men­tioned? Our labor was dic­tat­ed by that as well.

In short, this project had a lot of mov­ing parts. But, that’s some­thing we are ready and pre­pared for at Kaloutas, espe­cial­ly since we live and breathe com­mer­cial and indus­tri­al prop­er­ty main­te­nance. Our goal is to make it as easy as pos­si­ble for clients, and deliv­er qual­i­ty work that doesn’t inter­rupt their own sched­ules and deadlines.

How Did It All Turn Out?

Well, the pho­tos above speak for them­selves! The trans­for­ma­tion is dras­tic, and we are thrilled to leave well-pro­tect­ed, strong sur­faces behind.

Do You Have Any Ques­tions about Our Indus­tri­al or Com­mer­cial Paint­ing Services?

If so, why not give us a call? It would be a plea­sure to help how­ev­er we can.

Kaloutas is New Eng­land’s pre­mier con­trac­tor for com­mer­cial & indus­tri­al paint­ing, floor­ing, and relat­ed ser­vices. Estab­lished in 1987, Kaloutas has become a trust­ed resource for gen­er­al con­trac­tors, facil­i­ties man­agers, and build­ing own­ers from Con­necti­cut to Maine. Our team prides itself on high qual­i­ty work­man­ship, jobs done on time & bud­get, and tack­ling com­plex projects that oth­er con­trac­tors don’t have the expe­ri­ence or resources to han­dle. Con­tact us today for a paint­ing or floor­ing esti­mate, or give us a call at 978−532−1414 to learn more.