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Contractor Selects UltraMax™ Sprayers for Versatility and Reliability
 05/01/2005 - The new Minneapolis Central Library, due to open in 2006, is being heralded as a vital civic landmark and cultural center for downtown Minneapolis and the entire Twin Cities metro region. Home to an outstanding collection of 2.4 million volumes, it’ll be the fourth largest central library in the nation. Designed to include a rooftop planetarium, 230-seat auditorium, meeting rooms, gallery, as well as a café and store, the new 5-floor library will be a downtown landmark where individual and families return to over and over again for education, enlightenment, and entertainment.
Right now, contractors from different trades across the region are working under tight schedules to assure the landmark will open on schedule and become “the living room” of downtown Minneapolis.
One of these contractors is Joe Washington, owner of Washington Painting, Inc., Burnsville, MN. He’s a commercial paint contractor who’s painting the two-level underground concrete parking ramps. The job’s a big one for Joe’s small company which entered the commercial contracting business 4 years ago after specializing in residential painting for 14 years
“The two-level ramp encompasses 250.000 sq. feet of concrete walls, ceilings, columns and duct work, as well as 7,400 lineal feet of sprinkler pipe and ducting,” says Joe. “We’re spraying an acrylic block primer, followed by two coats of environmentally friendly acrylic topcoat. The painters are spraying 3-4 wet mils of paint per coat. When we’re done, we’ll have sprayed 2,200 gallons of paint.”
Joe’s not worried about his deadline. He’s got a professional crew of painters and good sprayers. In fact, he purchased a new Graco UltraMax™ II 1095 specifically for the job. The sprayer keeps company with an UltraMax 1095 he purchased 3 years ago.
According to Joe, the two sprayers give his crew excellent range in the ramps. “We run multiple guns off each sprayer,” he says. “Each gun is connected to 100 feet of hose. On the lower level, the painters used 3-foot pole guns and were able to get most of the concrete surfaces, as well as the pipe without scaffolding.”
The upper level has been more difficult because the ceiling was sprayed with a textured material that deadens the sound and insulates the floor between the parking ramp and first level of the library. It’s a white texture coating and doesn’t need to be painted. Joe’s paint is tinted so the painters use shields and are careful not to get overspray on the white ceiling.
“That hasn’t been a problem while using the UltraMax II sprayers,” says Gary Mock, Joe’s paint foreman. “The sprayers have excellent pressure control and we can crank the pressure way back and lay down a real soft spray on the pipes without much overspray. It slows us down a little but we’re maintaining our quality.”
The painters also use a variety of Graco RAC 5 spray tips on the job. “We use the narrow fan pattern RAC tips for the pipes, either .211 or .213. For the block primer we get our best coverage with the .427 tips. We can spray a wider pattern when we’re spraying the topcoat so most of the time we use a .519 or .521. The wide variety of RAC tips means we can spray virtually any material under any circumstance for optimum results,” says Gary.
Adding the second UltraMax to his fleet of sprayers was an easy decision says Joe. “The UltraMax is versatile and it’s important for a small contractor like me to have a sprayer I can rely on for multiple tasks. I can spray block filler, flush the system, and use the same sprayer to paint doors and frames.
“Furthermore, the UltraMax is reliable. I’ve never had any downtime with my UltraMax. sprayers and downtime is a problem I will not tolerate! If a sprayer is down, your crew is standing around and that’s labor dollars going out the door. Downtime is too expensive for a small contractor like me.”
Gary adds that the UltraMax’s quick knock-off Endurance pump design is a great feature and makes it easy to do maintenance onsite. “I can drop the pump lower right here if I had to and change packings or a rod and be back spraying in no time at all,” he says. “If you need to do that type of maintenance on other sprayers you usually have to take the unit back to the shop and tear it down. You’d waste a day at least!”
“Cleanup is easy too,” he says. “At the end of the day I use the sprayer’s new AutoClean2 feature and the sprayer virtually cleans itself. One great thing about this feature is that it uses very little water during the cleaning process. You gotta remember, we carry our own water into this site and we have to carry the waste water out too!”
"It’s just a great sprayer,” adds Joe. “I don’t have to worry about the sprayers I’m using on a jobsite because I know it’s the best. Just like we want to be!”
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