Residential door painting

AAE

Learner
Please give me some info on products you use and what you charge. And, how much time you allot.
Thanks
 
That's about as variable of a question as how much a door costs. Area of country you're in
, type of door, Panels only or frame & trim,on site or in shop. Wood, steel , fiberglass ? Paint or stain?
​Just did My first SPI Matte clear pair of 8/0 stained paneled fiberglass door slabs only last week, turned out pretty nice . I occasionally regularly spray a number of different products from latex paints to industrial alkyds to stained finishes.

Give me an example of what you're wanting to do & I can check with my employer on prices.
 
Yes to all the variables except stain. I knew it was an open ended question. For instance, customer has a fiberglass door he left in primer and now it's chalky. This door new,in primer is about $500, painted it goes to 200 extra per side.
I have a commercial airless sprayer. Sherwin Williams has a paint called Snap Dry that is ready for use in about an hour.
I told the customer it would be 250.
 
Use all automotive on it. Scuff the crap out of all that chalky primer ir sand it all off. Spray epicy sealer diwn, base it and put spi matte clear on it.
 
Your example sounds fair for both you & customer to go to site & prep & basically repaint with higher end traditional materials & a spray job. When talking home painting stuff, a homeowner could pick for a large number of half ass people that call themselves painters to come out & brush cheap latex paint on top of a worn finish for much cheaper, but $250 is fair to them for a FINISHER to do a better job.

When talking just the door panels only you are open to using all sorts of higher end finishes, but when talking painted door frames that are likely wood, painted wood trim with caulk seams & nailholes filled with spackle or caulk, then at least that portion is a traditional homepainting job where skilled use of a good paint brush in either latex or oil base may be more feasible than spraying. I've seen your better [brush] painters in my area charge around 250 to 500 for a quality repaint.

Just started a custom job today with a communicating door unit (inside & outside door in 1 frame) with sidelites in new frames & re-using the historical fluted trim inside & out. Staining both sides of outer door, outside of inner door & everything else gets customer's choice of SW designer white paint. For the stained parts, this is going to be my 2nd spi clear door job. The panels & frames requiring paint, I'm spraying with sw quick dry primer & paint. Then the sucky part for me is brush repainting the old trim & new caulk after installing everything else I've done. This is a good example of what I mean by variables. Basically 3 types of painting in 1job. Since I have to repaint old house trim, it limited me on what I could have used on the new wood door parts to match.

Another sidenote to your example, Any fiberglass door I've ever seen from a manufacturer not prefinished is a raw smc type fiberglass, which would take a hell of a long time to chaulk. Steel doors usually come with a primer which may look nice enough for homeowner to not paint & chaulk later. Just sayin??? Been in door business 27 years in florida, but your area may have something different than I've seen.

Have a SW account at work, but haven't heard of the snap dry before. If you use it , let me know what you think.


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that is still some garbage latex that i could walk up to and scrape off with my fingernail. no way would i allow a painter within 10 of my own door with anything latex. the only thing latex is good for is drywall. thats it.

i just did a door today as a matter of fact. it was a new wood door. inside was a stain/candy/conversion varnish finish. outside the new wood was primed with spi hb primer, blocked flat and painted with spi matte black ss @ 4:1. it will be durable, look very professional and outlast any latex 10x over. on the flip side, i also have a customer that is willing to pay for a nice finish on the door. if you dont have that luxury then you may need to just make due with the cheap latex and give them zero guarantee.
 
The snap dry appears to be one of the more homeowner targeted products, not the professional line, which may be why I haven't heard of it at the commercial stores. Been curious about their waterbourne epoxy though.
It definitely makes a difference what customers are willing to pay in your area. I'm just starting to get my bosses used to the cost of SPI mate clear for a topcoat on stained surfaces. No problem talking them in to the initial durability though with just a few samples. Biggest issue I have with latex use is it takes about 3 months to reach full hardness. But even with a not so high budget job, you can get the better latexes. Recently had to paint a few white vinyl windows bronze where PGT the manufacturer didn't offer the models needed with their bronze coating. The SW multi surface acrylic sprayed directly onto thoroughly cleaned vinyl passed a fingernail test after a few days drying time.

Jim, I am gonna sample some turbo primer I just got for my personal use on fir wood & maybe later on see if my bosses might be able to sell customers on mate black ss & white ss with flattner for certain slab finish only jobs. A lot of jobs requiring just paint they just sub out to a painter unless it's a higher up custom door job where I'm staining part of it. BUT, part of the reason I haven't tried to get past latex on some paint jobs is like in my above example, I have to clean up & reuse old existing custom trim with that may have LAYERS of different paints And of course have caulk beads & filled fastener holes painted over on site as part of a package door install sale. Very seldom I have to do that type of painting or even slab painting. Don't really see another choice for those situations other than latex or oil base house/trim paint.
 
yeah if its already got latex or some unknown coating then your most likely screwed and need to stick with latex. i havent used the turbo primer in years. i usually use spi hb primer but if your trying to get cheaper then almost any cheap 2k primer will be good enough for wood. doesnt have to be spi or any other premium expensive product. i only use 2k urethane if its exterior and will get wet. if its interior then i use conversion varnish primer. its crazy thick, very fast an high building and only 40 bucks a gallon.
 
If you're using flat clear, how are you dealing with nibs since you can't buff? Especially, if you're on site.
The SW guy didn't recommend the Snapdry. Too new to know longevity. I guess I'll look into Nason as a base. Don't want to use Standox unless they are willing to pay a lot more.
 
youll have no more or less nibs in that that anything else you put on, brushed, sprayed or rolled.
 
Since you're being mr comedian, my employer's logo says Ace Door Service ( our success hinges on your satisfaction)​:confused:

As far as nibs & small defects in an automotive clearcoat on a house door, also remember what you're comparing against other's doing (minwax,etc). For nibs big enough to bother you, you can knock the top of them off with a razor blade if needed. Also you usually won't ever use a high gloss either, so small defects will be less noticeable.

Tried my first gallon of preflattened SPI matte clear, which is production clear with flattner added. Not sure what amount is preadded, but costs almost 50 bucks more. Matte clear is stated as 4/1 mix, but instruction say you can go to 8/1 for a flatter look. Especially if trying to mix a small amount after running short of mix when spraying, you have to be careful with this
To save costs I figured next job I could spray unflattened first , then a flattened final coat, as I have done many times with enamels. Needed some more clear in a hurry & my local jobber doesn't stock matte clear or production clear. I got a gal of 4/1/1 euro clear they did stock & they threw in an almost full qt of flattening agent to play with.

​Jim, I only noticed you mentioning matte clear on your projects. What are your thought on premixed vs adding your own flattening agent & of doing only a final coat flattened out??
 
well the preflattened matte clear is always easiest, its consistent so easy to match if you have to spray something else down the road and its also much easier to spray without getting stripes. flattening euro is ok BUT it will stripe easier and its harder to match the sheen later. always spray a matte clear that is on the thin side so you may want to add more reducer to euro and universal. a high solids matte clear will stripe like a sob. also, always do 2 coats, not 1. 1 is a sure fire way to end up with uneven gloss levels. flattened urethane clearcoats are a little harder to spray to an even sheen than say conversion varnish. anyone can make matte conv varnish look good. urethanes you need to work at a little.
 
I figured the factory mix was safer& that was why you only mentioned it, I got euro mostly since it was all I could get quick to start clearcoating with before topping off with the matte.. I understand exactly what you're saying about striping & inconsistency. I won't bother experimenting with flattner & euro unless I run out of matte & can't wait for it. So 2 final coats of matte it is. I'll gladly just take your word on that.

Thanks Jim.
 
I work for Epic Doors which manufactures high-performance fiberglass entry doors. We evaluated several paint suppliers including TruCoat 623, Sherwin Williams Polane 2K Acrylic, and Aquasurtech D200.

We were looking for an environmentally friendly, single component water based paint that was super durable, had great adhesion and laid down smooth.

Based upon our evaluation we selected TruCoat 623. It was much more environmentally friendly than Polane 2K and is a single component and TruCoat had better adhesion than D200 and was priced better.
 
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