What To Expect

WHAT TO EXPECT ON THE DAY OF REFINISHING

We are asked a lot by homeowners on what exactly to expect on the day we refinish their fixture in their home. A lot depends on what exact service they choose and the exact fixture they want us to refinish. Most homeowners ask us to refinish a standard 5 foot bathtub, and select our heavy duty commercial coating. Bathroom restoration is far less intrusive as there is no spraying, no exhaust system we have to set up, and little noise. However, our standard coating is the tried and true solution that works for every bathtub and delivers consistently fantastic results so that is what is detailed below.

Prior to our arrival, please remove all items not stored in cabinets from the bathroom. This includes items around the toilet, items on the counter, and bottles stored in the tub. We will be masking your toilet and vanity area with plastic, so the cleaner this area is the better we can mask it off. Please also vacuum the bathroom as best you can. We will be temporarily turning your bathroom into a paint booth, so the cleaner and dust free the bathroom is, the better the results will be.

Upon our arrival, we will start prepping the bathtub. This is a lengthy process. We don’t skip steps. If your bathtub has been previously been refinished, we will have to remove the old coating. We use a special sanding system to do this, that minimizes dust. This same system is used when sanding fiberglass and plastics. Please be advised that there will always be a small percentage of dust that may escape into your home. This can be easily wiped off with a damp rag.

After any existing coatings are removed, we will thoroughly clean the tub and wet sand it to make sure there is no soap scum. Porcelain tubs, we will then treat with a chemical called etch. The purpose of etch is to degloss the porcelain so it can accept the new glaze.. We then thoroughly rise the tub clean.

At this time, we will begin masking the work area, and carefully covering everything in the bathroom to prevent overspray and protecting your other fixtures from settling of coating dust. We will set up our equipment just outside the bathroom including the exhaust system if it has not already been set up, the fresh air breathing system we will be using, and the sprayer. We will plug in our equipment into a surge protector we will bring and plug that into the closest outlet outside the bathroom. The entire prepping time takes about 2 hours if there is no stripping that needs to be done. If we have to remove an existing coating, it will take an hour to two hours extra.

Just prior to spraying the coating, we will use tack cloth on the tub to remove any remaining dust particles. At this time, we will mix the coatings typically outside your home and give you notice that we will begin work. We go to every effort to minimize impact to you. We’ll position the exhaust system down wind when possible, and add a bubblegum fragrance to the coating to make the odor less obtrusive.

the spraying process generally takes about 45 minutes to an hour. After we are done, we will start packing up our equipment, except for the exhaust system, which we leave running for another 30 minutes to remove residual odor from the bathroom. By the time we are done packing things up, we turn off and pack the blower, remove the drop cloths from the bathroom, and start to carefully remove the masking around the tub. We aim to leave our work area cleaner than we found it.