Radio towers are typically made from steel to ensure the strength of the tower. Maintaining the tower is essential, and tower painting should be part of the routine maintenance of the tower. For most people, that means hiring a company to take care of the tower painting.
Tower Preparation
Before any tower painting can start, the old paint on the tower needs to be checked, and the loose material scraped off the tower. In some cases, the paint may not be in perfect condition, but it may not be peeling, If this is the case, the tower painting company will use wire wheels and brushes to remove the damaged paint, and if they can do so safely, they may even media blast the tower to prepare it for new paint.
Sand or media blasting will remove all the old paint from the tower, but the tower painting company will need to contain the material as they remove it so that it can be disposed of properly. If the material can not be contained, the paint removal will have to be done entirely by hand.
Painting the Tower
Once the tower prep is completed, the tower painting can start. The tower painting company can spray the paint on the tower if the tower is in a far enough location away from other buildings or structures. The overspray from the painting process can damage the buildings that are close to the tower if it falls on them, so it is critical that the tower painting company contains the overspray.
Hand painting the tower may be required if there are structures nearby, but it can add a lot of time to the job. Hand painting can be done with brushes or special gloves dipped in the paint and then used to coat the steel tower. Many times several painters will start at the top of the tower and paint the tower as they work their way down the tower.
Using the Right Paint
The tower painting company will select the paint for the tower for you most of the time. The paint is typically an epoxy-based paint that will not conduct electricity and seal the steel that the tower is made of. The color paint used on the tower is often red and white to enhance the visibility of the tower by aircraft.
There are requirements for towers over a hundred feet tall, but the tower painting company can explain what colors and how the pattern needs to be applied to the tower.
For more information, reach out to a tower painting service today.
