All Forum Posts by: Mark Brechtl

I like to think of myself as a reliable commercial painting contractor, if that's what you're looking for. We specialize in new construction / Multi-Fam and based out of Madison.

Is this new multi-fam?

Joel As far as the debate between spraying and rolling goes, everything depends on the situation. We are a commercial contractor that specializes in new construction and multi-family is what we do the most of by far. We have 1,400 new units under contract for this year and we do a ton of apartment turnovers and some remodels in between. Since most of our work is new construction, I would say 95% of the painting we so is spraying. We use most Graco equipment and we have a fleet of 16 sprayers, from smaller HVLP setups to the bigger more intense Airless units. If you do not know much about spraying equipment you may get lost with this paragraph but I will translate it below. The machine we use the most by far is the Graco 1095 because it is so versatile, it can be used to spray almost any material and it sprays as fast as we can keep up with. Anytime you're using a sprayer, there are 3 different things that you need to figure out. 1 is your spray tip size. The way these are made, they are labeled with two numbers, so for example let's say you have a "525" spray tip. The last two numbers will let you know how much paint will come out of this tip if you help the trigger open for one minute, and being a "525" the number is "25" or ".25 Gallons per Minute". So the larger the number, the more paint that will be applied to the wall or come through the gun. The first number, in this case "5" is the width of your spray pattern, and this is calculated by holding the spray gun 12" from the surface you are painting, w the number 5, at a foot away from the surface being sprayed, your fan will be 10" wide. Let's say we have a 217 tip, the fan will be 4" wide from a foot away from the surface and will allow .17 GPM through the tip when the trigger is held open. Knowing these things will help you select the right tip for the job. If you're trying to be more accurate and avoid over spray as much as possible, you'd want to choose a small fan size that allows the correct amount of paint through based on what you're painting. These things can be adjusted in the field, but buy a tip that's close to what you think will work best for your project. Being as we spray a lot of new drywall, we have been using 1235 tips, which have a 24" wide fan from a foot away from the wall and let out around .35GPM of paint (which is among the largest available sizes they make). This allows us to get the job done faster. I ALWAYS recommend all sprayed on coats out of an airless sprayer be backrolled. On our larger projects typically we have one guy spraying and two guys backrolling to keep up. Backrolling allows product to be spread on evenly and uniformly and will give you a much better final product. (It is a very hard to spray any surface evenly without backrolling). On smaller projects we usually have a guy spray and backroll himself. One thing I always tell our guys, make sure you go back and LOOK at the work you did to make sure it looks even and uniform. If you are apply a product w a sheen, the light should reflect evenly even after paint has dried. You should be able to move and look at the surface and you will be able to see imperfections reflected in the light. It's always easier to fix things before they dry. If you wait until later, you may have to do the entire wall again or the new area may reflect light differently than the older. Also, start w your pressure on the lower side and dial up as you go. You can always turn up the pressure but you do not want to start with it too high or you could make a big mess. When trying to decide spraying vs rolling, try to judge how many things need to be covered that won't receive paint. If the time and costs of these things (masking tape, plastic, respirator filters, spray suits, demasking) exceed the time and costs it would take to just cut and roll it, you're better off just doing that obviously. Although some colors can cover better when sprayed, and if it would take you two coats to cover if rolled and only one if sprayed, spraying might be the better solution. Of course availability, experience and access to equipment may make that decision for you. I hope I have been of some help. If you need anything more specific please let me know! Mark

Jerry What your describing is a little bit unusual. I am guessing this siding could be aluminum. There are numerous solutions to almost every painting problem so let me recommend that you ask a local professional who could take a look at this in person. That being said, I typically do not recommend products which are marketed as "paint and primer in one". These products are basically a tinted primer and in my opinion it's a better idea to use a good quality primer and good quality finish (I do not mean top of the line such a SW Duration or the Bullseye product you were looking at) but a 100% acrylic latex or a higher solids alkyd if you are painting exterior. Typically although you can apply an alkyd (oil based) finish over a water based or latex primer, I would recommend you stick with one material. (latex primer, latex finish). As general rule of thumb, if we are painting any exterior metal or wood materials we like to stick with Alkyd as it's easier to work with for a professional. That being said, DIYs may have an easier time w latex as it's easier to clean up your materials, and usually doesn't require any thinning or adjustment right out of the can. W your situation, I understand you don't live close to any stores or resources you could ask for help. If you want to send me a few pictures, I can take a look at these and give you my best opinion after seeing. Sorry I couldn't be more specific but I rarely see bare metal siding around here anyways. Mark

Jerry What look are you going for, a perfect (as new) or just stop the peeling and get a good 5 years out of the paint job and then eventually repaint? If you're looking for that brand new look it may be more efficient to have the siding replaced. Sometimes painting isn't the best option, depending on what your goals are and what you need out of this. If you're looking for a new look and do not want to replace the siding, you can sandblast it, this would be ideal. It's very messy and time consuming as you typically have to tent in the area you are working on or you'll get sand everywhere (and I mean everywhere). When you get down to a bare metal you would use a good quality primer (in general I ALWAYS recommend using a good quality product (no big box stores, etc, use a brand name paint such as Sherwin Williams or Pittsburgh Paints, as paint is cheap, it's the labor that's expensive). I personally always like to use an alkyd primer on exterior metal or wood, as I feel it bonds better but it smells and you need to use mineral spirits to clean up your tools and your hands (and anything else you got paint on). I would use a product called "Sher-Cryl" from Sherwin Williams as it maintains a bright bold color longer than A100/Duration, but it is a professional product and some of the retail stores may not carry this. I believe it is worth the extra costs. If you're just looking to make it look nice and stop the peeling (an economically efficient way to solve the problem as long as possible, EVERYTHING w/ANY coating will have to eventually be repainted someday) I would pressure wash and make sure to get any peeling areas off. Sherwin Williams makes a product called "Peel Stop" which is almost like a glue which you can use as a primer to stop the peeling and "glue down" any remaining areas of paint. (Just FYI it is EXTREMELY time consuming to remove ALL of the existing finish. We did a house for a property owner last year and his wife wanted ALL the old paint removed and we had hundreds of house on one 40' side of the house sanding with power sanders and this was wood) After priming use a 100% latex coating such as SW A100 exterior and put two coats on. I typically recommend a satin finish on exterior siding. Also, make sure you tell the employee what you will be using this on as they have special formulas for siding (due to expansion/contraction w sunlight, heat, etc). I hope this helps. If you need anything more specific just let me know. Thanks for your interest, and good luck with your project! Mark The next best thing,

Tanya, That's awesome, East-Sider here myself, born and raised, went to LaFollette High School. On to your questions, the Mautz is a local product which we used to use a LOT back in the 80-90s (my father was a painting contractor for 25 years prior to me starting my company in 2011, I've been working for him as an estimator since 99-2000, but I've worked for him during summer in the 90s and have always been interested in the business/paints and coatings, Biff Mautz himself took my parents to Mexico on vacation when I was younger), until SW bought them out around a decade ago now, maybe longer. What you are using is actually a SW product in a Mautz can, however I do believe they kept some of their specific formulas and Rubber Satin was one of them. It's a good quality product (which is more than likely why they still make it) and it compares to a 200 or A100 interior Semi Gloss. If that's what you have been using on your properties, I would stick with this if you are satisfied with it as I think it will be around for the foreseeable future and it's a good quality product. If you did want to make a change the 200 Semi or the A100 Interior would be a good crossover. We still see Mautz used quite a bit around town. We do a lot of work with Fiduciary Real Estate Development (F.R.E.D.) and they use this in a lot of their properties. The only reason not to use it would be accessibility (only certain SW stores carry Mautz but most in Madison do and I believe they have one remaining store on Odana Road that is exclusively a Mautz store) and price. The colors you listed are very popular colors. I really like the "softened green" and I believe I have this in my own house! One of my hobbies is trying out new looks and finishes on my home and if others like, I can give them an idea but as I said we stick with new construction almost 90% multi-fam. Being as you live in Madison I guarantee you have seen a lot of the projects we have done and are currently doing. One recommendation that just came to my head that I think worked amazing and will be relevant for some on this website, I used a Metallic Bronze paint from a manufacturer called "crescent bronze.cm" to paint a standard aluminum 2 car overhead (garage) door and it turned out amazing. W the depth that metallic paint added, it made the whole house look very high class and it was no more difficult than spraying any other coating on. Let me know if you're interested and I can send before and after pics to anyone, just let me know or send me a message! Thanks for reading and if you need help w anything else, don't hesitate! Nice meeting you! Mark

Jim As far as popular colors ive seen recently, SW 7015, 7016, 7017 are the popular grays, I've seen a color called "SW 7036 Accessible Beige" used many, many times recently along with "6843 Escape Gray" "SW 6114 Bagel" off the top of my head. The typical scheme I've seen these days for new construction is usually an off white Eggshell in units, a flat untinted white on ceilings in the corridors and common areas, a unit entry accent wall, along w another beige or off white Eggshell on the corridor and common area walls. Lately I've noticed they've been pushing a "low sheen" finish which is supposed to be between eggshell and flat; I do not recommend this as I don't see any benefits; it doesn't hide imperfections and it's not as durable as eggshell. Another thing the paint salesman like to sell is "semi gloss" because it's "washable". In my experience how many times do you see people washing walls? If they get that dirty repainting is more efficient and if they can be washed, they can prob be washed just as well from an eggshell finish. I'm not debating it is a more durable sheen, however it's usually 50% more expensive (200 Semi gloss vs 200 eggshell, don't even get a quote for 400 Semi as the value isn't there in my opinion, stick with 400 over 200 for Flat.) By the way, most people would assume 400 is a better product than 200 and it's actually the other way around, 200 is more expensive and a more "solid" product than 400, which is why you're saving money using 400 flat and it's also a better performing Flat in my experience. It's confusing, but that's why you can ask me for help! ;) Mark

Ahh, colors... I tend to stay away from that area as I'm not a trained interior designer. We painting contractors always say, "you pick 'em, we put 'me on." If anyone has any questions on the process or the product they should use on their project I'd be happy to give my opinion! -Mark

Stevens Construction, best multi-fam builder in WI!

We do hundreds of thousands of dollars in turnovers every year and rental property is our specialty. How many units are you planning on painting, is cost or quality your biggest concern? If you're doing a lot of units, and I'm assuming these are existing, I would use an eggshell finish for durability in the units themselves. I always recommend flat white on ceilings and my preferred product is ProMar 400 Flat from Sherwin Williams. They make a color called "ceiling white" but I just go with untinted because it can be returned if you order too much (unopened cans, etc.) as it's not a custom color. I would use ProMar 200 Eggshell on walls, I would pick a standard color and then do an accent wall in the living room or master bedroom typically the wall opposite the TV. We are used to painting new 100+ unit complexes but we do a lot of existing turnovers every year as well. In 2015, we painted 125 units in 12 hours, I had 75 guys working at one point. But I find SW PM 200 to be a very good product for multi-fam or rental property. It's a good value for the price. If you're using flat, you'd be better off to go with 400 as it's a "deader" flat and will hide more imperfections. If you're going to repaint regularly I'd prob recommend going with flat over Eggshell as it hides any imperfections better allowing more forgiving drywall work/repairs. I work with a lot of property owners and managers and we get creative when it comes to providing them with the best solution for their needs. If anyone else has any questions or is looking for any advice feel free to ask, as I enjoy helping people out w their painting issues. Thanks for asking and I hope I answered some of your question, feel free to ask a second to clarify! Mark