I wrote this up on another forum and thought I’d share it here.
Around Christmas, it seems like every store owner gets their windows painted down here and it’s a perfect time to capture new business “Who’s going to remove that paint in January, here’s my card…”
So I thought I’d give a few tips for those who run into it.
Different painters use different paints and techniques but there are basically 4 possible results when scraping:
- The paint flakes off and scatters everywhere making a huge mess.
- The paint refuses to come off and you bust a couple of razors while cursing the world in general and the painter in specific.
- The paint disintegrates and makes a huge mess.
- The paint magically comes off and you’re happy.
#4 never happens to me.
If it’s the spray on snow junk don’t waste your time just get a damp microfiber and just wipe it off.
For everything else, get yourself a hip clip and a nice plastic bag to dump the paint scrapings into. Or drape a bag over a wet floor sign (some signs come apart at the joint and you can clip the plastic bag in the joint to hold it).
Get a second mop from the one you’re going to use to clean the window. I’ve had some paint just disintegrate and your mop will be ruined until you can wash it properly. It’s also nice to have a change of water available or a second bucket.
Get yourself some sprayaway. Sprayaway or any foaming cleaner is my best tool for paint removal (well, besides a good razor blade). It doesn’t matter what type of paint they use, just spray the foam on thick and let it soak. If the painter airbrushed the windows, a razor is going to scream while trying to take it off unless you pretreat the paint with foam.
I did a Denny’s that was airbrushed and I felt bad for the patrons while I was trying to scrape. The next time it was up, I pretreated and it came off in a quarter of the time.
After the sprayaway has done it’s magic (usually only takes a few seconds), you can mop and scrape and dump into your trash bag. This method takes care of problems 1 & 2 and number 3 is hit or miss depending on how cheap the paint was.
You wouldn’t believe how much headache the sprayaway has saved me. When it’s freezing out and you’re trying to get the job done but the paint refuses to be razored… yeah it’s nice to have a trick up your sleeve.
Oh, even with my few tricks, I ran into one job that the outline refused to come off. After I scraped everything, I still had to scrub the outlines off with a scrubby pad. When I asked about it, turned out the painter didn’t have a grease pencil so the ladies inside let her use eyeliner. That stuff is a pain to scrub out