Water Treatment Tower repaint ideas
Water Treatment Tower repaint ideas
(OP)
We are repainting the inside and out of an existing water tower. It is a welded steel tower that is 80 feet high and 12 ft in diameter. It was built around the 1970's.
I was thinking it was an easy job of removing old paint and putting a new potable water compatable paint on, but after taking with a paint distrubuter, I am seeing its a bigger job than i thought.
For instance, if the outside of the tower has lead paint, it will have to be stripped off and the dust in removal has to be contained. The structual integrity of the tank should be assessed when paint is removed.
Also that the painting of the inside can run around $6-7CDN per square foot.
If anyone else has any input on what to watch out for, I'm all ears.
Thanks
I was thinking it was an easy job of removing old paint and putting a new potable water compatable paint on, but after taking with a paint distrubuter, I am seeing its a bigger job than i thought.
For instance, if the outside of the tower has lead paint, it will have to be stripped off and the dust in removal has to be contained. The structual integrity of the tank should be assessed when paint is removed.
Also that the painting of the inside can run around $6-7CDN per square foot.
If anyone else has any input on what to watch out for, I'm all ears.
Thanks





RE: Water Treatment Tower repaint ideas
RE: Water Treatment Tower repaint ideas
RE: Water Treatment Tower repaint ideas
RE: Water Treatment Tower repaint ideas
The condition of the existing coatings will help dictate what type of system you use.
Besides sandblasting to metal, dealing with lead abatement, and recoating; there are also overcoat systems available. They may just require a pressure wash with power tooling prior to coating.
A reputable paint rep (such as Tnemec, Sherwin Williams, etc.) should be able to help by looking at the existing tank, performing some adhesion testing, etc and then providing a coating system.
Other options also exist to help contain the lead without draping the entire tank. We've used torbo blasting (water/sand blast) with blastox followed by a brush blast to remove the flash rust.
RE: Water Treatment Tower repaint ideas
Tnemec has a lot of information on their website. From a contractor's standpoint, try to avoid anything too exotic. Normally, we're seeing epoxy inside, epoxy/ urethanes outside, with or without zinc primers or clear overcoats. The cost on this tank will run on the high side per square foot due to the small size.
RE: Water Treatment Tower repaint ideas
As JStephen said, usually on new tanks we use a potable water grade epoxy (two or three coats)on the tank interior and an epoxy (two coats) and polyurethane on the exterior. Tnemec and Devoe have products specific to water tank coating and their representatives are pretty knowledgable.
RE: Water Treatment Tower repaint ideas
These firms are able to do a structural inspection and evaluation of the steel as well as the coating system. They would be able to recommend a coating system as well.
RE: Water Treatment Tower repaint ideas
RE: Water Treatment Tower repaint ideas
You may want to consider having the tank inspected prior to painting. We used a firm called TIC in ours. They can also recommendations as well.
RE: Water Treatment Tower repaint ideas
The other had lead base coat and then another non-lead on the outside. So I can encapsulate the tower in a new coat of paint.
After 40 years the insides are starting to show wear from rust so i will be looking to getting those coated as well.
Though the proposed cost was 6 times my estimate.