Institutional Ceilings

Having good looking institutional ceilings is a must for a professional workplace. Whether it be a school or a hospital, unsightly cracked, chipped or stained ceilings can make your institution look less like the professional workplace that it is. Also, brighter, freshly painted ceilings can allow for more light to radiate throughout your institution. Light radiates much better off of a lighter, brighter surface than a dull and dirty one. This not only helps people who work in your institution but also those who are using the services.

Preparing Your Institutional Ceilings

Before we begin any institutional ceiling job, the first order of business is to prepare the surface. A properly prepared surface helps the paint stick to the ceiling better. This helps make your new institutional ceiling paint job last much longer. If dirt, debris or even old paint get between the paint and the original surface, it can cause cracking, chipping and other wear and tear.

There are several methods used to clean institutional ceilings, some more drastic than others.

One way is through the use of chemicals such as paint strippers. These are applied to the paint where they react with the paint, allowing you to scrape it away from the original surface.

Another, albeit messier way is through pressure washing. With pressure washing, water is forced through a hose at high pressure to chip away the layers of paint. For many institutions with drywall or wooden ceilings, a high pressure stream of water is not the most prudent choice. Instead, pressure washing should be reserved for more industrial institutions.

The more common way to remove paint from institutional ceilings is through the use of abrasives. This can be as simple as using industrial sanders to strip the paint from the surface to a more extreme method such as sandblasting. In sandblasting, coarse materials are sprayed at high speed onto a surface to pulverize the original paint.

Each method of cleaning an institutional ceiling can leave behind debris. When finishing cleaning, we perform a thorough vacuum job to ensure that the surface is clean and ready for the paint application.

Painting Your Institutional Ceiling

Whereas most outdoor and industrial paint jobs are now done using high pressure paint sprayers, painting institutional ceilings is commonly done by brush. The nature of a paint sprayer can often lead to overspray and paint going where it shouldn't. This is not to say that all institutions could not be painted with a sprayer. It simply depends on the nature of the ceiling and the room itself.

After the ceiling has been primed it is time to choose a paint. Try to choose a high quality paint that will be able to stand up to the general wear and tear that institutional ceilings can take. Generally a flat paint is the best choice for ceilings. Flat paint can help to hide blemishes and marks from brushes and rollers. Also, you do not want to pick a paint with a sheen as this can help to emphasize imperfections and blemishes.

It is essential to clean and paint institutional ceilings regularly because it can help to protect the materials used on the ceilings and walls. When ceilings are properly taken care of, they help to eliminate the overall noise pollution that can sometimes be found in institutional buildings. Ceiling Painting USA knows the exact procedures that will keep your institutional ceilings looking fresh and clean for years to come. Please call the toll free number listed above for more details.

In such a large space, the ceiling is usually the most reflective area within a single room. Unfortunately that space is most often bare; unlike the walls or the floor of a space, which can easily cover noise through furnishings. However, when you keep an institutional ceiling clean, you're providing:

Excellent Uniformity
Good Hiding and Coverage of Possible Stains
Low Odor

Institutional Ceilings - Answers to Common Cleaning and Painting Questions

If your institutional ceiling is suffering from poor stain resistance, it could be the result of a low-quality paint. This means that the paint is failing to resist any leaking absorption of stains and dirt. To solve this problem, you should opt to use a high-quality acrylic paint with latex because it contains binder. This helps prevent stains from penetrating through the film of the paint.

If your institutional ceiling is suffering from paint incompatibility, you're losing out on the overall uniformity of the space. This sometimes occurs when there is a loss of adhesion from older coats of paint that received a top coat with latex. All you'll need to do to solve this problem is repaint again, this time using an oil-based paint. You may also start from scratch by removing the old paint, surface cleaning the ceiling with sandblasting and then issuing a newer, top-quality coat of paint.