Alpine Painting & Sandblasting Contractors

Five Boroughs Brewing Co. is a new company looking to enter the craft beer industry. This start-up hopes to produce several varieties of unique craft beer that will be loved by all New Yorkers and beyond. They want their beer to represent a sense of community and culture that embodies the five boroughs of New York City. To start, Five Boroughs Brewing Co. is planning to open up their brewery in the heart of Brooklyn, New York in early 2017.

In August of 2016, Alpine Painting & Sandblasting contractors submitted a bid to help transform the interior of an old steel fabrication shop into a custom craft brewery. Five Boroughs Brewing Co. needed Alpine to paint three separate spaces, which included the Production room, the Storage room, and the Taproom. The total floor area is approximately 15,000 square feet and the ceiling measured around 33 feet tall. The production room, the largest of the three spaces, contains a large overhead Crane, steel archways/columns, upper/lower gantry horizontal wall steel and sprinkler piping/conduit throughout the facility. The storage room includes sheet rock/block walls, newly constructed offices & lab rooms, wood ceiling, sprinkler piping, and structural steel. The Taproom, which is the highlight of the space, includes a custom bar, four bathrooms, wooden ceiling, overhead crane & cab, overhead & man doors, steel supports & sprinkler pipes.

Prior to selecting Alpine to take on the job, they were able to meet with the customer and walk the property. At that time the owner had an overall idea for the look of their new facility but was open to recommendations as far as surface preparation, coating selection and color placement. Blake Tomnitz and Kevin O’Donnell, Co-Founders of Five Boroughs Brewing Co.d, had a vision of adding color into their dark industrial space. Not just any color, but electric colors. They were very specific during our initial walk-through of how they wanted the space to look and feel when an employee or customer walked through the doors. The majority of the wood truss ceilings and & brick/block walls were painted with a medium gray color and the heavy bulk steel was highlighted with one of five bright colors to make them jump off the mild grey backdrop. The color wasn’t the only thing that made the area pop, but the consistency and positioning of each color created a unique look that captured your attention.

The inspiration for their paint color choices came from the unique packaging and marketing materials built into their brand. Alpine was asked to match a series of Pantone (PMS) Colors with our paint. Alpine initially provided a drawdown of each color, supplied by Sherwin Williams. After Alpine recognized how vibrant the color selections Alpine encouraged the owner to allow our team to complete multiple field color roll-outs to help determine the coverage of each color. Sherwin Williams worked closely with our team to choose the right Color-Prime Colors to deliver the best coverage of each topcoat. Shades of White to Gray were used under each topcoat color to maximize the finished look. Some colors required two finish coats where others needed three or more.

One hurdle to overcome was following behind a general contractor who had previously primed various areas of the facility. Unfortunately, the GC did not apply the appropriate primer for some of the substrates Alpine was to topcoat. This became a concern as to the integrity of the previous contractor’s surface preparation and the poor choose in product application. Without knowing if the previously applied coating will hold back the rust from the metal beams, Alpine presented the customer with several options to move forward and paint their steel. The note on our proposal read as follows:

Previous Coating Note:

The Insl-x Prime Lock Plus Coating that was used by your General Contractor, prior to our arrival, is a good product to seal out stains on drywall and wood but not intended to hold back rust on metal surfaces. It is possible that rust may bleed through the coating prematurely. After discussing this matter with our technical representative they would like to remove the coating from the steel to ensure no future issues. Based on the cost of removing the coating and the time it would take I asked about other options to paint over this coating. One option is to re-prime the previously painted steel with a rust inhibitive solvent-borne primer intended for steel surfaces and then topcoat with the appropriate finish coat. This may prevent rust from bleeding through, however, this will add an extra coat of material and labor, thus increasing the price. The other option is to simply apply the appropriate alkyd topcoat and hope that the rust will not bleed through since this is an indoor environment with moderate climate control. I will provide you with both options and you can choose which you feel is best, but we cannot guarantee that rust will not bleed through on the steel in the production room without striping off the current coating and applying the proper coating system.

 

This note brought the issue to light prior to starting the project and gave the owner the opportunity to control the outcome/cost while protecting our firm from potential future liability.

Initially the customer was not certain if they wanted to paint every substrate in each of the three rooms. They had a construction budget and were conscious about keeping the cost in-line. Most painters would have thrown a lump sum for the entire project and called it a day. However, Alpine tried hard to give the customer what they needed by creating separate pricing for almost every substrate and breaking out each of the three rooms independently. The initial proposal provided 21 separate line item prices. Alpine was then asked to break out future work in a total of four additional work orders providing a approximately 36 further prices. Our goal is to provide value by delivering more than the average painter. The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is so often, giving a little extra.

Alpine worked hard on creating a comprehensive proposal to clearly list the scope of work. We wanted to make sure the customer was made aware of exactly what substrates were and were not included. Our proposal outlined a schedule detailing the progression of our work. Alpine represented the surface preparation, a coating section outlining, number of coats, manufacturer, coating type, coating finish and substrates each primer/paint was being applied to. We then listed our insurance coverage, a time schedule and a condition list to express what Alpine was providing and what our expectations were on behalf of the customer.

Alpine started working on the brewery September 27th, by first accessing all areas via ladders, scaffolding and electric boom lifts. Plastic & drop cloths covered all surfaces not to be coated. Alpine’s craftsmen made sure to clean all applicable substrates prior to painting. This meant everything including sheetrock, wooden ceilings, masonry block walls, and even steel were compressed air blown or broom cleaned to remove dirt, dust, or other loose material that would prevent proper coating adhesion. Steel surfaces, were prepared by SSPC-SP 2 & SP3 standards via hand and power tools. This included using disk grinders, scrapers and wire brushes, to remove any loose rust or peeling paint.

Alpine utilized brushes, rollers, and airless sprayers to apply the specified coatings. Since there were many different surfaces throughout the facility, Alpine had to use a variety of Sherwin Williams’s products for each of the substrates. The bare sheetrock wall surfaces were coated with a PVA Drywall Primer. PrepRite ProBlock Alkyd, Stain Blocking Primer/Sealer was used on the masonry walls and the wooden ceiling surfaces to help seal out tannin bleed and surfaces stains. The abundant steel was primed with SW KemBond, Rust Inhibitive Universal Solvent Based Primer and then top coated with Sherwin’s Pro Industrial Urethane Alkyd Enamel in a Gloss Finish. Lab Areas and Mechanical rooms were coated with a durable Pre-Catalyzed Waterbased Epoxy.

Our crew worked hard to efficiently complete our scope in a timely manner. One of the major obstacles was working with/around other trades at the brewery. Being that the work space was rather small and many contractors were working simultaneously, overlap often became an issue. In order to meet our customer’s time expectations our crew had to coordinate our effort with the other trades and work as a team. Hazard communication and scheduling became imperative to work efficiently and safely.

The project was a complete success. Co-Founders Blake Tomnitz & Kevin O’Donnell were pleased with the outcome. Alpine has completed four additional work orders since the initial contract. Blake and Kevin have also contacted Alpine to do additional work on the brewery. The people of Alpine Painting company are excited for the near opening of the craft brewery, just as many New Yorkers are. We hope to do even more work for this company on an additional brewery and to see the potential growth of this business.

 

Project Details:

Sherwin Williams, PVA Drywall Primer

Sherwin Williams, PrepRite ProBlock Alkyd Stain Blocking Primer/Sealer

Sherwin Williams, KemBond, Rust Inhibitive Primer

Sherwin Williams, Quali-Kote Interior Latex

Sherwin Williams, Pro Industrial Pre-Catalyzed Waterbased Epoxy

Sherwin Williams, Pro Industrial Urethane Alkyd Enamel

Sherwin Williams, DTM Primer/Finish

Krylon, Valspar Chalk Board Paint, Black Color

 

CREDIT TO

5 Boroughs Brewing Co. Owners Blake Tomnitz and Kevin O’Donnell http://www.fiveboroughs.com/

Alpine Painting’s Hardworking Craftsmen

Ed Bain - Project Manager

Dave Scaturro – Estimator

Rich Trefz – Sherwin Williams Paint Company

Joe Cardinale - Sunbelt Lift Rentals