About Lowcarbongrid2030

We Ended Up Specializing in the Rusty Part

Lowcarbongrid2030 is a painting contractor based on Arizona Ave in Santa Monica, in the 90401 ZIP. We started out doing ordinary exterior repaints on houses and small apartment buildings, and over time the calls narrowed. Owners kept ringing about the same thing: the railings look terrible again, the balcony deck is soft in one corner, there is a brown stain running down the stucco from a post base. So that is what we do now.

There is a reason those elements dominate the work in this city. Salt air deposits chloride on every exposed surface within a few miles of the sand, chloride holds moisture against the metal, and the metal corrodes under whatever film is over it. Add a marine layer that keeps surfaces damp until midday for months of the year, plus a large stock of 1920s through 1970s apartment buildings and condos whose balconies have been recoated by whoever was cheapest, and you get a lot of rails that have been painted five times and prepared none.

Our approach is unremarkable and it is the whole job. Take the corrosion back to sound metal. Wash the salt off. Use the primer the substrate actually calls for, which is different for bare steel, hot dip galvanized, aluminum and previously coated iron. Coat when the surface is dry and clear of the dew point, not when the schedule says so. Seal the joints the water is really using.

We work in occupied buildings most of the time, and in Santa Monica that means narrow lots, permit parking, a tight staging area and neighbors whose windows open onto the elevation we are grinding. We plan the containment and the parking before the first day, keep the dust and the chips off the ground, and clean up daily rather than at the end.

We will also tell you when paint is not the answer. If a post base has corroded through, or a ledger is soft, that is a repair for a different trade and coating over it just hides the problem for another year. We would rather send you to the right person and come back afterwards to do the coating work properly.

Free walkthroughs, honest scope, written numbers. Call (424) 587-8615 or find us at 7475 Arizona Ave, Santa Monica, CA 90401.