I have a customer with a large warehouse and roughly 9,000 sq ft of exterior painted brick. He would like to remove the paint and restore the building to its original look. I did some research and found that soda blasting appears to be extremely effective for this and environmentally friendly. So I looked around and found that I can rent the equipment but it was extremely pricey – $2500/week from Sunbelt. A few companies offer the equipment with 100lb hoppers for around $300. Not sure what I need to look for specifically in the equipment though to ensure that what I buy has substantial power yet doesn’t break the bank.
Anyone have equipment advice? Any experience with this process in general and words of advice.
Thank you much for any feedback.
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Bump
to bring it up top again.
I'm wondering -- does it make any difference whether you use caf or decaf? Is it called "Coke blasting" in Mississippi? Does Norm call it "tonic blasting".
Why would soda blasting be more environmentally friendly than other methods? You could be releasing a lot of lead into the air if the paint contains it. Soda is a fairly expensive blast medium.
I would check into steam cleaning, or hot sodium hydroxide stripping.
I am just starting to research this but I believe the media itself is less environmentally harmful than others often used for this typoe of work - acid, chemicals, etc.....
Anyone have recommendations on equipment?
Well, the other media are sand, steel/copper/aluminum/zinc shot, glass beads, garnet, dry ice, walnut shells, and a few odd chemicals such as magnesium sulfate . Of these pretty much only silica sand is a problem due to the potential for silicosis (though of course the removed paint is always a potential environmental hazard).
What if in your area they would call it Pop blasting? Pop might take offense or even fell threatened if someone keeps talking about blasting him.
Heck, Pop got blasted every night for years.
any luck finding a soda blaster?
Hello, did you have any luck finding a soda blaster rental other than sunbelt??(my boyfriend has also been looking for one and sunbelt is the only place we have found and they apparently only have one blaster that is out on rental until sometime next week) We are looking to soda blast the old paint from our house, def not as big as your clients warehouse but we are also looking not to spend an arm and a leg on a rental. any help would be appreciated if you know of any other rental places...