Confined space coatings

Overview

Tight spaces, careful work

Some of the surfaces that most need a coating are the hardest to get to: the inside of a tank, a vault below grade, a pit, or the water box on a chiller. They’re closed in, with few ways in and out and little air moving, and there’s often old coating or residue to take off first. Confined space painting takes the same coating skill as any other job, plus a crew that knows how to work safely inside.

Spaces we coat

Tank interiors are most of this work: walls, floors, and roof framing, lined for what the tank holds. We also coat chiller water boxes, vaults, pits, and other enclosed equipment where the coating has to stand up to water or chemicals.

Safety comes first

Our crews are trained in confined space entry, on top of OSHA 10- and 30-hour training. Every job gets a site-specific safety plan, daily safety checks, and weekly tailgate safety meetings. What else a space needs depends on the space and your site’s rules, and we plan it before anyone goes in. The Twin Oaks backwash tank, for example, was lined under a confined space permit, with a negative air system and standby rescue workers and equipment.

Keeping dust and overspray in

Prep and spraying in a closed space make dust and overspray, so the work area gets contained. At the DuPont Fabros SC1 data center, full containment with air filtration went up around each chiller before the water boxes were blasted to SSPC SP-10 and recoated. All eight were done inside a working data center.

Coated to spec

Once the surface is clean, the coating goes on to the specified thickness. Two-part materials are mixed on site, film thickness is checked as the crew works, and the space is inspected before it goes back in service.