Paint Booth Cleaning & Maintenance Tips
Your paint booth is one of the most critical pieces of equipment that you own, and it's important to keep it in good working condition to prolong the lifespan of your investment. Your time in the booth also needs to be productive to maximize shop profitability.
The best way to accomplish both of these things is to keep your booth clean and organized to combat clutter and debris. Here are some of our top paint booth cleaning and maintenance tips to enhance your productivity and quality of work.
How to Clean a Paint Booth
The first step to cleaning your paint booth is to shut off its power supply and make sure all areas are properly sealed. You'll also want to close all vents and turn off all fans before beginning the cleaning process. Remove your exhaust filters so you can wash them separately and keep them in good working order.
Next, make sure you're wearing the proper safety attire, including gloves, coveralls and a face mask to avoid any harm caused by paint fumes. If you have a smaller paint booth, you can use a simple scrubbing brush with a solution of water and paint remover to clean it. Rinse with water once you've sufficiently cleaned paint from the booth. If you have a larger paint booth, you'll want to use a pressure washer to properly clean it.
In between these deep cleaning sessions, it's vital that you regularly sweep and tidy up your booth to prevent debris from building up inside. You should also change your air filters on a regular basis to ensure your booth continues to properly filter out contaminants.
Spray Booth Maintenance: How to Clean Paint Booth Walls & Floors
Cleaning paint booth walls, floors and lights starts with keeping them protected from overspray. One way to do this is to use a spray-on coating. We recommend two options to keep your paint booth walls and floors clean:
• 3M 06839 is a liquid that sprays on and dries to a clear film. It's available in one-gallon bottles and can be easily removed with water.
• Klean-Strip offers a 5 gal. Mask & Peel bucket (KLE-CMP229) that sprays on walls and dries to a white film to offer protection and help with visibility inside the booth. To clean up, simply peel away the film.
If you'd rather not go the spray-on route, you can protect your booth walls, lights and floor with Self Adhering Booth Film. It's simple to apply and is available in various lengths and widths to meet your specific needs. The wall/light film has a thickness of 3 mm., whereas the floor film is a bit thicker at 4 mm.
Dust and airborne contaminants are some other common problems you might encounter during a paint booth job. Fortunately, DeVilbiss has an innovative way to tackle this issue. They offer a 5-gallon container of Dirt Control Floor Coat (DEV-803491) that can be sprayed on your paint booth floor every day, with each bucket yielding about 20 applications. The floor coat neutralizes the electrical charge of air particles so that up to 50% of contaminants fall to the floor and don't get stuck to whatever you're painting.
Cleaning a paint booth may be a tough job, but it's an important one. Create and stick with a cleaning schedule that makes sense, and make sure your employees always know who is responsible for cleaning. Keeping your paint booth clean will help extend its lifespan and ensure it continuously delivers outstanding results for your business.
Organizing Your Paint Booth
Cleaning your paint booth is crucial if you want it to yield high-quality finishes, but it's just as important to keep your paint booth neat and organized. Organizing your paint booth will ensure you're able to complete work in a timely and smooth fashion. We'll share some of our favorite tools for keeping paint booths organized.
If you find that your air hoses are constantly getting kinked or tangled, or that people are always tripping over them in the booth, the Champ Hose Glide can help. By keeping the hose off the floor, you can significantly extend the life of your hose. Two 21-foot Hose Glides are included with purchase. They are easily mountable on either side of the paint booth and allow hoses to glide smoothly on their roller wheels. No special air hoses are required -- standard air hoses work just fine.
Champ Hose Glide in Use
Some other products that can save you unnecessary trips in and out of the spray booth are the Karajen Booth Boxes: Booth Box II and Booth Box Mini. Each of these items can be mounted to the paint booth wall via strong magnets or mounting hooks. Both have two hangers on the outside of the cabinet to hold your paint guns. They also feature cabinet(s) to hold tape, tack rags, razor blades and any other supplies you might need. The Mini version has one cabinet and the Booth Box II has two. These boxes are made of 20-gauge steel and powder coated so they'll look great and last a long time.
Summary
Cleaning and organizing your spray booth is no easy feat, but it's essential in order to boost shop safety, productivity and customer satisfaction. By clearly delegating your cleaning and organization tasks to your staff and investing in the proper tools and equipment, you'll be well on your way to a cleaner, more productive shop floor.
Looking for paint booth cleaning and organization supplies? Check out our selection of Paint Booth Supplies & Accessories, where you'll find everything from spray gun holders to floor film to keep your paint booth looking great.
