This paper presents two case studies where proper and thorough coating inspection at the blast & coating shop level would have avoided coating failures that caused incredible headaches, project delays and millions of dollars of unnecessary remedial repairs and legal costs. It details how the lack of Certified Coating Inspection oversight at the shop coating level, can, and has, caused massive and incredibly costly failures. Failures that are sometimes impossible to fully rectify. Failures that were completely avoidable. This paper will show how owners were left with no choice but to accept quality that was far less than they paid for, due to logistics and project deadlines.
Critical procedures at blasting and coating shops and steel fabricating shops, include surface preparation, application of primer coats, often shop applications include intermediate coat application, as well as occasionally including topcoat application. These phases of the process are absolutely critical to the long-term success of coating/lining projects. If the industry is serious about quality, specifiers must include language in the project specifications to include mandatory independent qualified coating inspection during shop coating applications. This critical process is required to verify the accuracy of the contractor's/shop's quality control processes, as well as providing qualified quality oversight independent of the contractor/shop. The two protective coating failures featured in this paper are best described as High-Performance Commercial projects. These two failures should get the attention of every specifier.
At this point in time, on site coating inspection of coating/lining application is more common on industrial projects than perhaps ever before. That is a positive, and definitely a move in the right direction for those interested in maximizing the life cycle expectations of their projects. Unfortunately, some projects are not necessarily clearly defined as "industrial", and may be more accurately defined as "high performance commercial. When considering projects that fall under the High-Performance Commercial category, coating inspection is often overlooked and not specified at any level, for either field coating or shop coating operations. Even when inspection is specified on these types of projects, it is one of the first processes considered for elimination or cancellation when budgets get stressed. There is still much work to be done to educate specifiers to the risk and cost of not including coating inspection at critical hold points on high performance commercial projects.
