By: Tex Enoch, Induron Sales Representative
I remember how excited I was to discuss painting this tank when it was being designed. Huth Engineers in Lancaster, PA was the design engineer for this project. It is a 7.5MM gallon water storage tank, approximately 100 feet in diameter and 100 feet high.
As you can see, it has ornamental pilasters up the sides and a multi-level roof. The pilasters and roof were to be lighted at night. A monument tank if there ever was one!
Huth decided to specify Pennsbury Coatings’ materials for the original painting project. As a brand-new employee at Pennsbury, you can imagine my excitement when our products were chosen by the Chicago Bridge and Iron Co. to coat both the interior and exterior of the tank. The original project was completed in 1971.
Nearly 50 years later, the same excitement returned when the City of Lancaster decided it was time to completely rehabilitate the tank.
This included some structural repairs as well as completely blast cleaning and painting the tank’s interior and exterior surfaces. This time I worked with Aero Engineers (a direct offspring of Huth Engineering) and their inspection company, Mumford-Bjorkman and Associates. Once again, my products were specified for both the interior and exterior of the tank – only this time the products were manufactured by Induron Protective Coatings.
The interior coatings system
Nearly 12 years ago, Induron introduced a 100% solids ceramic epoxy, Perma-Clean 100, as their go-to interior finish coat. Reinforced with ceramic beads, Perma-Clean 100 can be applied up to 50 mils in a single coat with NSF approval. The system chosen for the interior was a moisture-cured, zinc-rich epoxy primer (Induron’s Indurazinc MC67), a stripe coat of a 70% solids epoxy (PE-70) and Perma-Clean 100, applied to a DFT between 25 and 35 mils. The total elimination of potential V.O.C. contamination in the finish coat made this system a natural in the environmentally-sensitive areas of the northeast.
The exterior coatings system
The exterior system utilized the same prime coat and PE-70 once again, but this time as a full intermediate coat. The finish coat was Induron’s Perma-Gloss Flurourethane. Perma-Gloss was selected because it will extend the effective service life of the exterior coating system by at least 10 years.
The team
I think we – both Induron and the City of Lancaster – were very lucky that U.S. Tank Painting was the low bidder selected for this project. They had the financial where-with-all, the proper equipment, the experience and the expertise to execute this project in a timely and professional manner.
The coating project was further enhanced by the utilization of MBA as the city’s inspection company. Not only did MBA serve as a full-time inspector. Their expertise and familiarity with Induron’s products enabled the city to utilize them as an on-site consultant as well as their inspector. Induron, MBA and U.S. Tank worked together as a team to complete the project and give the city a truly first-class job.
The accompanying video will give you a first-hand view of some of the things that needed to be accomplished for this endeavor to have turned out so well.
I was very fortunate to see this project from its initial inception to where it stands today. It was a remarkable undertaking then, and it remains so today. I am proud and very grateful to everyone who helped make it work!