Painters In Chatham

Sometimes.  Sometimes there may be paint lying around from a previous project, or maybe you thought you would tackle a paint job yourself, bought the paint but then had a change of mind.  It’s a fair question.  A select few times we’ve had to decline using provided paints for inferior quality, but most times providing your own paint is acceptable.  We opt to only use top quality paints, so this leads in with the next question we’ve had numerous times.

Several things.  Many of which can be read on the can, or in the datasheets, it is the job of painting companies to be familiar with the tech behind paints!

The amount of solids by volume is important (thick paint).  By having high amounts of solids in paint, (as opposed to just base water or base linseed oil!)  we achieve the many benefits that make a top quality paint.  One such solid pigment is called Titanium Dioxide, and High hideability is one such direct feature of this.  This allows for the paint to cover well over previous colours, as well as blemish marks on the walls from hand prints.  We also get features such as vibrant or bright hues from light refracting ability.  In paints suitable for outside jobs, commercial building painters and home painters will both want UV resistance, weather resistance and possibly mold resistance if the painted areas are shady and prone to mold.

These are features that play importance in various jobs.  On an exterior project, if you want a bold colour, you will want something to resist colour fading right?  Similar for interior wet rooms, you’ll obviously want something specific for that area.  Ideally a working window or fan to exhaust steam but you’ll also want a paint with mold resistance.  Cheap, low quality paints, are drippy and splashy to work with, and simply perform poorly.  Meaning more coats to cover, poor washability, poor colour vibrancy, poor binding to surfaces, poor longevity, and uneven drying.

Most jobs look perfect with exactly 2 coats of finish top-coat paint and this is how a typical quote is prepared by paint contractors.  It is rare to do 1 coat paint jobs and have it look good.  It almost never looks good in 1 coat.  This is because when paint is applied on surfaces, it goes on the surfaces with different thicknesses.  Then as the paint dries and evaporates, the areas where the newly applied paint was a little thinner, will show some of the previous coats of paint.  When the previous coat of paint is a different colour, it’s obvious and you can see it from a couple feet away.  Even if repainting the same colour, the old underlying paint job after a few years will have a dull shine, whereas the fresh paint will have a fresh shine to it.  So again, wherever the new paint went on a little thinner, the new paint will evaporate a little more and show the old paint.  Two coats is the standard number to give great coverage, uniform in appearance in colour, and sheen.

There is a caution if you want to stick to only 2 coats.  When we look at colours together in person while looking at a colour deck, or on your own at a paint store, if your budget is tight it would be wise to stick with colours that will always look great after 2 coats and these are colours that are mixed in White Base paint containers.  White base paint cans have the most amount of paint in the can while on the shelf at the store with very little room for adding colourants when the lid is pried off.

Beyond White Base gallon cans, you have Medium Base, then Deep Base, then Accent Base.  Each of those, has consecutively less paint in the can, leaving more empty space for the store clerk to add more colourants!  So, if you want to avoid needing more than 2 top coats applied in keeping costs lower, be cautious about paints that need to be mixed into a Deep Base paint cans or Accent Base paint cans.  This is because Deep Base or Accent Base colours may require 3 or even 4 coats to look right.  Deep Base paints are occasionally used (think a deep dark purple), and Accent colours aren’t painted often, as these are usually the more extreme colours (think fluorescent greens or hot pinks or super bold reds).  So why is this?  This is because these cans, while still untinted to your colour on the store shelf, have a lot more empty space in the gallon cans so that the paint clerk at the mixing station has room to add a lot more volume of colorants.  Now, in paint cans and in paint, the pigment titanium oxide within paints is what gives a paint its hideability power over old paints.  So if there’s less paint and less titanium oxide in the can to begin with, the hideability of that paint is greatly reduced, thereby needing more coats before you truly get your new colour hiding your old paint.  Makes sense?  If budget is tight, avoid paint colour choices that fall into Deep Base or Accent base.  We wouldn’t want to mutually agree on a standard 2 coat paint job, you’re expecting it to look great, and then it just doesn’t fully cover the old paint.  There are some other instances such as switching from one Deep Base colour, to an alternate Deep Base colour where again the hiding power isn’t the strongest in Deep Base paints or Accent base paints and we may recommend a full prime before applying top coats.  This will impact pricing, and this is where our experience comes into play to provide suggestions how we can best achieve your budget objectives for your project AND within the confines of your timeline.

We occasionally do yes.  For some jobs, spray painting sometimes is the awesome ideal answer but anytime spray painting is considered, there are multiple factors that will determine how feasible spraying might be for the project.

Spraying generally requires a lot more prep time, namely in masking off a lot of areas not to be painted as well as additional setup and cleanup time of the machine each day.  Another factor of consideration is that typically a lot more paint gets used since a lot of the vaporized paint gets dried in the air before hitting the work surface or blown away from the work surface.

With these factors, spray painting is beneficial for large surface area jobs that don’t require a lot of masking off.  Therefore, the majority of jobs are usually by brush and roller, whether we are up on ladders or scaffolds.