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Tips For Painting A Roof

painting a roof

Painting a roof can vary slightly depending on what material your roof is made of but there is one thing they all have in common and that is they must be cleaned before you apply any paint.

How To Clean A Roof

Depending on your budget and what you have available to you will depend on how you clean your roof. Using a high pressure water blaster is one of the best ways to clean a roof, specially any roof with a rough surface. You can use a broom and hose but you will need some type of chemical to help remove the mould from within the pores of the surface. This is where high pressure is good, it does get into all those nooks and crannies.

A roof with a smooth surface such as galvanised iron could be washed much easier with a boom, some detergent and a hose to wash it off after. High pressure is also good to use but it is not as important to use on smooth surfaces.

How To Paint A Corrugated Iron Roof

If you are painting a new iron roof you will need to wash it with a degreaser before you start unless the roof is more then a year old and has weathered. This means that the oil from fabrication has worn away and the iron has been slightly etched through weathering.

With unpainted iron you will need to prime it first with a suitable primer, this is also the case for any sheets of iron that may have been replaced on an existing roof.

You will need to apply two coats of suitable paint, and the choice of colour is up to you but do remember lighter colours will reflect the heat and darker colours absorb the heat.

Airless spraying is the quickest way to paint any roof and if you decide to paint your roof this way there is a technique to applying the paint. When you are spraying you should spray about a metre wide section and work your way down the sheet, spray in the direction of the flutes in the iron. If you like you can use the joins in the iron as a guide, it is an easy way to tell exactly were you are at. Once you have worked your way down the sheet and completed that section move back to the top of the roof and repeat for next sheet of iron. You must keep a wet edge at all times and that is why you go back to the top of the roof before it starts to dry, if you decide to work back from the bottom to the top, the top part could have tacked off when you get back up there.

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