You've
heard it before: Painting is all about
preparation.
This is certainly
true, if you want long-lasting results. Painting is as much
about the structural aspects as it is about the
colours, neat lines and clean finish. Thorough
preparation and the use of appropriate
sealers/primers/undercoats, and then the right topcoat
ensures that the new protective film sticks well to the
existing or newly repaired surface, and will withstand
expected environmental conditions. In my experience, thorough cleaning is the most important
step of a repaint (and plastering as well, incidentally),
followed by deglossing and spot priming. This is why The 3rd
Coat always washes every surface with sugar soap solution,
before rinsing with water. Sugar soap is my choice because
it works well without being severely corrosive and toxic
like bleach for example.
A quality paint-job with thorough preparation will not
only last longer, but will also make future maintenance
much easier and cheaper.
I believe that a good tradesman's duty is not merely to
make his paying customers happy, but future
residents/owners of the property, and indeed, the entire
community. Hopefully my clients share this spirit
of patience, joy and generosity, as I think it is the only
worthwhile way of doing any work.
The name The 3rd Coat
does not imply the application of 3 coats of paint in every
project. The name originates from doing a lot of new work in
the beginning, where 3 coats were always applied by me
despite the shockingly poor standards in the new build
market in general. But nowadays, most
of my work is residential repaints, where 3 coats are only
occasionally necessary.
However, sometimes the existing paint layers exhibit major
adhesion problems. Most of the time this is due to lack of
cleaning, sanding or priming before previous layers.
Sometimes it takes years and multiple paint layers for
adhesion issues to show up, but they eventually will.
When dealing with old bubbling/flaking paint, it is often
the best option to strip the entire surface in a safe,
health conscious manner and start over. If even just one previous paint layer has
poor adhesion, then adding extra coats of paint will
actually worsen the symptoms. Ideally, the previous
layers of paint have been applied by quality tradespeople,
who ensured proper preparation and used good quality paint.
Unfortunately that is not always the case.
Colour choice can also affect the durability of a paint job.
Darker colours absorb the heat, potentially causing
premature paint failure, even if the application was
faultless. Part of our job is to educate our clients on
these matters to help them make better choices.
