The challenges facing painting contractors today (whether residential, commercial, institutional, or industrial) continue to increase almost exponentially.

It is not enough that the normal ‘head winds’ of running a small business continue or increase, but recessionary concerns also prompt traditional customers to put projects on hold and new prospective customers to either stay with their ‘tried and tested’ contractor relationships or to also defer a project start. Coupled with these more normal cyclical challenges are those from the mixed bag of additional challenges where voluntary and mandatory regulations attempt to go from the status quo to very green in shorter and shorter time frames.

There are EPA federal rules, there are several State regional rules (e.g. OTC), there are State rules, there are City rules, there are client rules, there are voluntary certification rules (e.g. LEED), and no doubt, others’ rules. These do not all have the same definitions or the same adoption dates.

Years ago, the National Institute of Building Sciences issued a document where they addressed coating performance relative to environmentally preferable products with the fol lowing (emphasis added):

“Given that the primary function of paints and coatings is to provide protection for coated surfaces, and thus extend the life of such surfaces, it is imperative for any environ mentally preferable product specification to address the equivalence in performance between products being com pared. Inadequate consideration of product performance in the past has led to a selection of paints and coatings that have not provided comparable performance, leading to the premature aging of structures on the one hand, or excessive product use to offset performance shortcomings on the other hand.”

There are concrete examples where an interior area can be painted with approx. 1⁄4 of the VOC levels allowed by LEED, yet the anticipated durability of the completed paint project with the non LEED approved products is approx. 4 times that from products that would meet LEED’s requirements.

LEED now allows VOC budgeting to be used to ‘compensate’ for products which would not be permitted on a LEED site. Most specifiers either don’t know that or just don’t allow it. That forces contractors to use products that will not perform to the performance levels wanted. Legislated VOC legisla tion, for the most part, does not allow VOC budgeting.

In the past, many painting contractors found it difficult to feel sorry for paint manufacturers, but no more. Their challenges to meet the “dog’s breakfast” of differing, and now constantly changing, ‘green’ rules and regulations are colossal. They continue to ‘scramble’ to be all things to all people. In doing so, systems and product performance levels may not be what they were.

At the end of the day, the painting contractor’s best defense is a close working relationship with quality suppliers who keep up with the local VOC requirements and keep the contractors’ need to deliver performance and durability to the client in mind, in spite of the ‘green’ challenges which continue to change seemingly on a daily basis. Value those knowledgeable quality manufacturers who genuinely want you to be able to deliver quality and greater durability to your clients!