I
“PAINT IT BLACK!”
By Fred Summers, Wastewater Tech
began my career as a Wastewater
Operator with the City of Raleigh, North
Carolina in April of 1977. The Neuse
River Plant was “new” and did not require
very much painting. Sometimes when a
gear box was rebuilt the mechanics would
spray paint the case just for the sake of
looks. Years later, some of the exterior
doors needed freshening up. Our Assistant
Superintendent was very fugal and could
spot a deal a mile away. The State of North
Carolina’s surplus equipment warehouse
had inventoried a lot of Battleship Gray
paint. The paint was offered at a great
price to municipal governments. Needless
to say 55 gallons of Battleship Gray paint
goes a long way. But that is a story for
another time.
When I worked for the City of Salisbury,
North Carolina I had another interesting
experience with Paint. Female prisoners
from the local camp were tasked with
painting the Wastewater Plant. The ladies
were restricted to just painting as high as
they could reach without using a ladder.
Therefore, some of the doors and door
jams were only painted to approximately
6 feet from the ground, leaving almost a
foot of old paint at the top of the door.
Can you say “What???” The ladies
proceeded to paint the perimeter fence
with Aluminized Paint. One person would
roll one side of the fence while another
person would roll the other side opposite
her. That worked great and the results were
surprisingly good.
Recently, I had the opportunity to observe
a professional coatings crew sand blast and
repaint a small municipal package plant.
Wow, what a difference. The coating was
prescribed by a major manufacturer. The
system required three coats, primer on bare
metal, tack coat on primer, Clean Tar on
tack. But that not all. The top coat had two
ratings: UV protection and submersible.
The primer went on gray and looked great.
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NCRWA.COM |
Fall 2013
feature
