Industrial Cleaning in Lowell, MA - What Potential Is Hiding Under Your Facility’s Dirt and Debris?

When our team arrived on the scene in our client’s cor­ru­gat­ed man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty, they were imme­di­ate­ly faced with a num­ber of fac­tors that would need to be dealt with.

On one hand, this 400,000 square-foot struc­ture had gath­ered an incred­i­ble amount of dirt and debris, col­lect­ing espe­cial­ly on the avail­able sur­faces of the ceil­ing. At the same time, there was machin­ery under­neath this sus­pend­ed filth that need­ed to be protected.

This also was a liv­ing, breath­ing, active facil­i­ty; one that couldn’t afford to be inter­rupt­ed for long peri­ods of time. Our goal was to find a way to clean and paint the ceil­ings while both con­tain­ing the mess and stick­ing to the nec­es­sary time­line we had to work with.

How Do You Con­tain a Large-Scale Clean­ing Project?

In short, with lots of plastic.

Not just any plas­tic, though. We cre­at­ed a full-con­tain­ment enclo­sure around our work area with 4 mil, fire-retar­dant plas­tic that stretched from floor to ceil­ing. With­in this giant bub­ble we also masked off and care­ful­ly cov­ered the equip­ment below us, and paid spe­cial atten­tion to the 480V bus­bars and the fire alarm sys­tem through­out the process.

Indus­tri­al-Grade Dirt Calls for Indus­tri­al Cleaning

We removed the dirt and debris using a com­bi­na­tion of com­pressed air and clean­ing agents. One agent that was par­tic­u­lar­ly use­ful was a no-rinse, pre­paint clean­er from Great Lakes Lab­o­ra­to­ries. This biodegrad­able prod­uct reduces labor time by not only clean­ing well, but also by not need­ing to be rinsed before the next stages of paint and coat­ing. This helps to stream­line the process as well as cre­ate a clean­er, more recep­tive surface.

We Con­tained the Dirt and Debris, but How about the Paint?

Since con­tain­ment was cer­tain­ly key, we select­ed an oil-based, indus­tri­al dry­fall paint from Sher­win-Williams.

What are the ben­e­fits of dryfall?

Well, this par­tic­u­lar paint for­mu­la is specif­i­cal­ly engi­neered to dry near­ly instan­ta­neous­ly. This means that any over­spray becomes noth­ing more than an eas­i­ly-cleaned dust rather than a mist of actu­al paint.

We were able to effi­cient­ly paint the entire ceil­ing deck, mechan­i­cals, and joists. As you can see in the slideshow above, this cre­at­ed an incred­i­ble aes­thet­ic dif­fer­ence. Beyond looks alone, a lighter, more reflec­tive ceil­ing also allows for a brighter and safer work environment.

We com­plet­ed the project on-time, despite last-minute requests/​changes made by the facil­i­ty man­age­ment team. It was also our plea­sure to work dur­ing off-hours on the week­end so that we didn’t inter­fere with our client’s sched­ule. They were thrilled that the work could be done with­out a shut­down, and with our over­all empha­sis on qual­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. As a result, we have been asked back to com­plete the rest of the ceil­ing through­out their facil­i­ty, and we look for­ward to it!

Do You Have Ques­tions about Indus­tri­al Clean­ing or Painting?

If so, the team here at Kaloutas would love to help. Why not con­tact us today?

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.