All About Painting: Epoxy Paints

By Vancouver’s Best Painters www.vancouversbestpainters.com
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Epoxy Paints - Page 1/2

The hardest part of perfection is charging for it

Epoxy is just another five- letter word for money." This bold statement comes from Rick Anderson of Vancouver’s Best Painters, in Vancouver British Columbia and sums up his satisfaction with the little-understood product. Epoxy's main claim to fame is longevity. It acts like a liquid plastic coating on everything from transistor parts to floors in theatres, shopping malls, garages, hospitals and factories. The major use of two-part epoxy is to protect surfaces—typically floors— that see high traffic use daily. It is usually brushed and rolled on like paint. But, unlike latex or alkyd paint, which will last six months to a year, epoxy can last up to 10 years.

The reputation of epoxy paint has come a long way over the years. Anderson says it use to be that manufacturers could get away with just a drop of epoxy in a gallon of alkyd paint to be able to market it to the consumer as an epoxy product.

No VOC

Most epoxies are not only chemically resistant but they have no VOCs to give off and are considered spark-proof. This makes epoxy ideal for chemical storage areas. They are also electrostatic dissipative floor coatings, meaning they resist static electric discharges, making them the floor coating of choice for computer chip manufacturing plants.

Costs

Epoxy costs can range from $40 per gallon to $200 per gallon, depending on the application. It can be tailored to almost any environmental application to prevent damage in extremely acidic or caustic industrial sites to the need for ultra-clean bio-hazard surfaces. Epoxies are made to be chemical resistant and can resist splashing of caustic materials or can be tailored for use inside a tank holding sulfuric acid.

Chemistry

The geeky explanation for epoxy or polyepoxide is that it is "a thermosdetting epoxide polymer, which cures (polymerizes and crosslinks) when mixed with a catalyzing agent or "hardener," according to Wikipedia (a not-always reliable source for such information). All this means is that polymers chemically mix with hardness to produce heat and a hard plastic coating on the surface you are painting. "Epoxies are seamless and thus easier to clean and they simply don't allow germs and bacteria to breed," says Rick Anderson "Most of our products have steri-septic, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agents built in for use in areas where cleanliness is a factor."

Epoxy on concrete

Concrete is like a hard sponge and requires polyamines, an epoxy that flows smoothly like paint. Some epoxies, where corrosive resistance is the goal, are made for steel. This is where the rare solvent polyarnide epoxy is used, but it will give off seriously toxic fumes.

Green epoxy

But VOC epoxies are the exception today, not the norm. Today's epoxy is considered a "green product" since it is made with 100 per cent solids. It has no VOC elements. Compare that to paint which is typically 60 per cent solids and 40 per cent solvents, which causes shrinkage of the product as it dries by evaporation.

Since most epoxies used in commercial applications are now solvent-free, they can be used without masks in areas with ventilation, Anderson says. "The customer always gets his money's worth when we put down an epoxy," he says. "It is a good-looking decorative product, clean, hard-wearing and it lasts for a decade or more. It can easily be recoated with some sanding. Paint on cement, on the other hand, will fail in months or little more than a year."

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