Over-painting of existing cladding

Pre-finished steel provides an inherently flexible and adaptable surface that can be over-painted at any point during its lifetime. The process of over-painting is quick and can be carried out with minimal disruption to the activities within a building.

When to repaint will depend on the location and circumstances of the building and its owners.

In a purely functional situation there is no requirement to over-paint a Confidex® guaranteed Colorcoat Celestia® or HPS200 Ultra® building until long after the guarantee has expired.

This could be up to 40 years into the future at which point an over-paint could extend the lifetime to 50 years and beyond with subsequent over-paints. It is important to choose the timing of the over-paint carefully to ensure the existing coating is still intact and does not require removal.

Over-painting may be carried out far earlier in the building’s lifetime than may actually be necessary. This could be for reasons such as maintaining high building aesthetics and image and restoring the building condition as a requirement at the end of a lease in the case of self-repairing lease contracts.

The process of over-painting includes:

• Inspection and assessment to identify an appropriate solution.
• Surface preparation – in most cases a wash down of the area to be recoated and removal of any loose paint using abrasives. Any areas of bare metal must be spot treated with an appropriate primer before application of the topcoat.
• Recoating operation – two coats of an approve coating system applied by spray or roller applicationto the required thickness specified by the manufacturer.
• Inspection – important to ensure that the technical requirements of the paint manufacturer have been fulfilled such as paint thickness. Most guarantees for recoating are insistent on this inspection.

Choosing the right coating for over-painting is important. Using a high performance, water-based paint considerably reduces the amount of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) liberated during the overpainting operation compared with conventional solvent based paint.