This commercial repaint in Port Orange covered the whole street face of an auto repair shop. The blue metal roof had faded to a chalky powder blue, old painted lettering still ran across the fascia, and the block columns between the three service bays looked tired.
Look closely at the finished photo and you will spot the ladders still standing and the OPEN sign lit in the window. That is normal for commercial work. Most businesses cannot close for a paint job, so we work around them. Both photos were taken from roughly the same spot in the parking lot.
- Location
- Port Orange, FL
- Property
- Auto repair shop, three service bays
- Surfaces
- Metal roof panels, fascia, block columns and front wall
- Work shown
- Before and finished
Before and after photos
Each photo is labeled with the state of the work, so you always know what you are looking at.
Can a faded metal roof be repainted instead of replaced?
Usually, yes, as long as the panels are sound. Fading and chalking are a coating problem, not a metal problem.
That powdery look on the before photo is the old paint breaking down under years of Florida sun. It rubs off on your hand. Paint will not stick to it, so the first job on a roof like this is pressure washing the chalk off completely and letting the panels dry, then checking every fastener line and seam for rust. Any rust spots get cleaned back and primed before the finish coat goes anywhere near them. Skip that step and the rust keeps working under the new paint and pushes it off within a couple of summers.
If a roof has panels that are rusted through, loose, or leaking at the laps, paint will not fix that, and we will tell you at the estimate. This one was sound underneath the fade, which is the best case. A recoat was all it needed.
How do you paint a business that cannot close?
You plan the order of work around the customers. On a shop like this one, the roof and upper fascia can be worked from ladders while cars still come and go through the bays below.
Lower surfaces such as columns and the front wall are done in sections. Each one is taped, painted and cleared before the crew moves on, so the whole front is never blocked at once. Parking lot traffic matters too. Customers pull in close to an auto shop and leave cars idling near the building, which means ladders, drop cloths and paint stay tight to the wall and get packed away at the end of every day instead of left out overnight.
That is how most of our commercial painting in Daytona Beach and Port Orange runs. Tell us your busy hours at the walkthrough. It changes the schedule, and it is far easier to plan for up front than to discover halfway through.
What should a shop owner ask before hiring a commercial painter?
Ask for a written bid that names the surfaces, the prep and the number of coats. "Paint the building" is not a scope. A good bid for this job lists the roof panels, the fascia, the columns, the front wall and the door frames separately, and says what is being done to each one before paint goes on.
Ask about insurance too. A commercial property manager or landlord will often want a certificate before anyone climbs a ladder on site, and we carry $3,000,000 in general liability coverage so that is never the thing that holds up a start date.
Last, ask to see similar work. Pictures of a painted living room tell you nothing about how a crew handles a metal roof over a live parking lot. You can see more jobs like this one on our commercial projects page, or call Color Masters Painting and Robert will walk your building with you.
Is your building's roof or front looking faded?
We price commercial repaints in writing, with the prep and coats spelled out. Call Robert or send a request and we will come out to see it.