The most successful retails stores, such as the chain of Wal-Marts across the country, have behind them a team of commercial painting contractors to handle every aspect of painting application. The size of these huge single-storey concrete structures is aptly proportional to the size of the challenges faced by commercial painting contractors in maintaining the coatings for these facilities.
Without doubt the singularly most significant nemesis of commercial painting applications in such big-box stores is water. If the presence of water is not addressed and managed, coatings failure will be unavoidable.
Commercial painting contractors learn to understand the behavior of water as it travels within and outside the facility. Water vapor is diffused in walls, driven by the physical laws on humidity. Water seeks its own level, much as vapor need to move from highly-humid interiors to low-humidity exteriors. If this simple law is not obeyed, such as in the case of commercial painting applications that fail to provide insulation, condensation will occur and result to a wet wall with an imminent coating failure.
While most water-related problems may be felt in the retail store during the course of its operations, the root cause of water permeation may come as early as during construction. Commercial painting at this initial time should very carefully take into account that freshly-poured and hardened concrete blocks contain water therein. These cement foundations need to be completely water-free before commercial painting can commence.
Any maintenance done from then on should assess moisture levels within the facility and be repaired or remediated accordingly.
