Alternative Strategy for Painting Specs

This spring quarter update of SpecLink includes a new strategy for preparing painting specs that we hope will make the whole process easier. Anyone who has tried to specify paint knows how complicated it can be, as well as how much it is dependent on up-to-date information from the paint manufacturers. SpecLink’s painting specs have never included detailed product specs for paint because there are so many different manufacturers and most have multiple quality levels for similar products. Several different tactics combine to make a complete alternative strategy for painting specs.

New Way to Scope Painting Work:

Section 099000 Painting and Coating has a new optional checklist this quarter that helps get the scope of the work defined correctly. The specification has two new key provisions—the “Scope list” and the “Do Not Paint list”. These are both located in PART 1 under Section Includes, replacing a Schedule that appeared near the end of the section and some other text in PART 3. The Scope list says in essence, “paint everything unless fully factory finished or otherwise indicated” with an editable list of “to-be-painted” items that might not be obvious from the drawings. Following that is the Do Not Paint list that defines items that are factoryfinished or otherwise “not-to-be-painted”, also editable. The virtue of this approach is that it is not necessary to prepare an exhaustive list of paint systems in order to “scope” the work—the painting contractor’s instruction is to “paint everything unless otherwise indicated.”

New Proprietary Paint Specs:

Rather than add generic paint specs, which would have limited utility, we decided to find a way to combine BSD’s generic PART 1 General and PART 3 Execution with PART 2 Products maintained by individual manufacturers. The Spring Update includes two proprietary sections as an example of this—099100 Painting and 099300 Staining and Transparent Finishes, based on the products of Pratt & Lambert paints. Section 099000 Painting and Coating has been modified to cross-reference these two sections (or any section of those numbers) for PART 2 Products, if the specifier wishes.

New Paint System Tactics:

The sample proprietary specs also include several tactics that we recommend no matter whether proprietary or generic specs are being used. These sections reduce the total number of paint systems required even on complicated projects to a manageable number by several methods: 1) primers are specified “as recommended by manufacturer.” This eliminates the need for separate systems just to specify different primers for different substrates. 2) Eliminating separate primers makes it possible to combine a lot of ordinary surfaces into a single, default paint system—“use this system unless otherwise indicated.” There are three default systems, one each for exterior opaque, interior opaque, and transparent wood finish. 3) Because many manufacturers have several quality lines and many otherwise identical products come in several sheens, the products are sorted by sheen, then by quality, with the most expensive first. If only one sheen is required, no further definition of location is required. If more than one sheen is required, a notation of location can be made right in the system description. The same goes for more than one quality level. As a result, the paint systems specs also function as a “where-to-put what” schedule.

Refer Your Favorite Paint Manufacturer:

BSD does not intend to develop proprietary paint specs at no charge to manufacturers. We will be modifying the MPI-based painting spec that is already in SpecLink to use the tactics described above. Any user who would like to see their preferred “base spec” paints in this format should refer the manufacturer to us using the Referral Form at www.bsdsoftlink.com/speclink/bsd_referral_form.pdf or in our Specifiers’ Library at www.bsdsoftlink.com. If the building product manufacturer you refer adds either proprietary specs or an enhanced listing to SpecLink, you will receive a referral award of $250.