Commercial property painting is often a big job. These are jobs that also need to be completed quickly so that business operations are not hindered during the painting process. This can make it a challenge to pick the right time of year for both the painters and the business owner to get the job completed in a timely fashion.
You will often want to consider both interior and exterior painting in one job as well, which means that you will really need to be careful about the timing of your paint job. If you have been trying to figure out when the best time would be to get your commercial property painted, there are some easy guidelines that can help you to get your painting job done in a timely manner and with limited interruption of your workflow.
If you are ready to learn more about the best time of year to paint a commercial property in Texas, you need to read on!
Consider the Season for Your Texas Commercial Paint Project
Texas is a place that has a lot of tough weather for your commercial buildings to weather. It can get very hot and very cold and some areas will even get snow each year. This can make the window of time for painting your commercial buildings quite small. You will also want to consider which seasons are the busiest for your kind of work and make sure that choosing these times will not impact your ability to get your job done while painting is being completed on your property.
Warm weather can help to dry time, but extreme heat can actually damage the paint that you are applying and make it bubble or not adhere. Likewise, extreme cold and extreme wet can impact the ability of the paint to stick to the surface that it has been sprayed on. Cold weather can also impact drying time for interior painting work, making the drying process take longer than would be ideal.
Depending on your location, the spring can be a great time to paint as there is going to be less variation in the temperature between night and day and it is less likely that the weather will get very hot or very cold. Early fall can be a good time as well since the temperatures will likely be kind for the painting process.
You will need to try to look at the weather forecast for your area historically during the seasons that you are thinking of painting and consider if it looks like you can count on good painting weather. The company that you are hiring should also be able to advise you about the best times of year for painting a commercial building since they will naturally have a lot of experience with the processes involved and the local weather.
Consider Interior Painting at a Different Time
While it is tempting to paint both the interior and exterior of your buildings at the same time, it can cause major issues for your employees if you paint during the busy season for your industry. You might have to paint the exterior of your buildings when things are really busy but the interior of your buildings should be off-limits during this time.
You will need to remember that you will probably have to move employees into other locations to be out of the way of the painters and they might have to work from home or just take days off if you do not have the space to relocate them. If you consider what this might do to productivity during the busy season, you can easily see why it might be a good idea to just have the painters come in when things are much less active for your company.
Not every painting company will work on interior painting over the holidays, but sometimes you can also pay a premium and have a team of painters come in to paint your business over a major holiday. This can be the best way to get a large commercial building painted without impacting work processes negatively for many days.
You might also be able to time your interior painting with a general shutdown that will not greatly impact your bottom line. Remember that interior painting rarely needs to be done more than every few years so you will not have to plan on this being a consistent part of your annual business processes.
You will simply need to carve out a week or less in most cases for the painters to get into all the spaces that people use for their daily tasks. Larger and more open areas like entryways and hallways can probably be painted while people are working without causing an issue for anyone.
How Often Does My Commercial Building Need to be Painted?
This can vary depending on your industry and the kind of weather that your building is exposed to. As a general rule of thumb, you will want to replace faded or damaged paint regularly so that your buildings look professional and so that rust and other kinds of damage cannot affect the metal surfaces under the paint. It is common to paint your commercial building every 5-10 years but some industries are harder on their commercial buildings and need to plan for a more frequent painting schedule than this.
Forklift and truck traffic as well as work that makes debris or damages the interior paint in your building can remove years from the life of your paint job. You can always have a painter come and inspect your buildings if you are not sure whether they need to be repainted or not. Sometimes you can actually stretch your paint job into the future farther than you might think so long as the damages that are visible are not impacting the integrity of the paint.
There is a big difference between stains or other small blemishes and issues where the paint has been completely removed or has failed. This is why a painter can be a big help as you decide if you need to repaint right away or if you can wait and plan the job to be done in a year or more. You might think that your paint has been damaged beyond repair, but the damages that you are seeing might not actually be as serious as they look.
Metal buildings will tend to need to be painted less often than buildings that are made of other materials but this might not be the case if your area gets a lot of heat and sun each year. The radiating heat from the sun can actually wear out paint on metal buildings faster than you might think. It is important to consider faded paint a possible access point for damages to the integrity of your metal buildings.
The interior of your buildings can probably be painted every three years but as stated above, if you do a lot of heavy industrial work inside your buildings, damages to the interior paint might necessitate a more frequent painting schedule. Office buildings where people come in and sit at a desk all day suffer much less damage to the interior paint than buildings where items are assembled and processed in some way.
Picking the Right Season For Painting Your Texas Business Matters
If you need to paint your commercial building, you need to be sure that you pick the right season for your painting job. This might mean that you need to consider times where your business processes will not be negatively impacted or it might be a decision that is driven more by considerations of weather. Many businesses need to consider both things before they schedule their painting jobs.
If you have been worried about when to paint your buildings or are not even sure that they do need to be painted, you will want to reach out to a few commercial painters and see if someone can come and inspect your site and offer you a bid. This will give you more information about what you actually need related to your commercial painting job and it can help you to plan for this work to be done. Being able to get your buildings painted before there is significant damage to your paint or major interruption of your workflow can make the process of painting your commercial buildings much less painful for everyone.
FAQ
1. What happens if it rains in the middle of my building being painted?
Rain can make paint slide right off the surface that is being painted. Your painter will need to stop painting on days that experience rain and some parts of the paint just might have to be covered up or even painted again if a surprise rainstorm comes up during painting. It should be easy to predict days that are too rainy for painting and picking the right season for your paint job can help prevent this from being a concern as well.
2. What about parking during my paint job?
Parking lot management is often easier than you might think. Despite needing to use a hoist or a lift to paint sections of your commercial building that are higher up in the air you should not have to take more than a small segment of your parking spaces out of use while painting is being done. A hoist or bucket lift does not take up much space and paint over spray is controlled readily with quality painting tools. If you do not have enough parking spaces to share with the painters, you might need to shut down for a day or so while this side of the building is painted.
3. Can I update my building colors?
You can easily change the color of your buildings when you go through a repainting process but you might need to pay for the existing paint to be stripped off and for a new primer to be applied. This can add some time to the paint job but it can deliver really excellent results for your needs. Remember to ask about this before your painter bids up the job so that you are on the same page about the cost and the time involved.
4. Can I use any painter for this type of job?
Commercial painting is much different than residential painting and you should not consider working with a painter who is not familiar with the process intimately. Some companies handle both kinds of painting jobs, but they likely have an entirely separate group of painters who work on each kind of job. You will want to be sure that you are working with an experienced commercial painter for your commercial paint job. You might run into major issues with the end product if you work with a painter that does not know how to paint commercial buildings.
5. Can my painter fix the damage to the building?
Most painters will not have anyone on staff who can help to repair issues with the actual building itself. If your painter sees that there are segments of paneling or metal material that need to be replaced, they will let you know so that you can have someone come to repair these parts of the building before painting is started. You should always be aware that some kinds of damage to the paint will have allowed moisture damage and other issues that will necessitate repairs that painters cannot complete for you.
6. How long does it take for paint to dry?
The answer to this can depend upon the weather conditions at the time of the painting job as well as the kind of paint that you have chosen for your paint job. Latex paints will dry to the touch in about 1 hour but they might still need a further four hours to fully cure. Other paint types usually require about 24-48 hours to fully dry. You will need to consider this when planning interior painting work.
Hiring Texas Commercial Painters for Your Project Any Time of the Year
Hiring professional and experienced painters is important, no matter what season you plan your project for. Our team at Omega can help you plan the optimal time for your painting project as well as execute it with impressive results. Get your proposal today so our team can begin helping your commercial property look its very best.
