Advice on Line Marking Care
This is some advice provided by Linemarkers South East Queensland about caring for your newly painted line marking.
We would like to thank our clients for choosing Linemarkers South East Queensland. We have written this advice about caring for your new line marking as we want to ensure the line marking will last for as long as possible and taking care of the painted surface will help.
Linemarkers South East Queensland uses road marking paint to Australian Standards 4049.1 and 4049.3. The road marking paint used is touch dry in 5 minutes, is generally driveable in an hour (depending on humidity) but full cure is not achieved for seven days. Full cure means the paint is both fully dry and hard. This means that it is important to avoid high pressure water blasting or harsh chemicals to clean the painted area until it is fully cured.
Having said that, the painted areas will become dirty with traffic and environmental conditions and should be washed clean. If anti slip has been added during painting, dirt will cling to the grit added to the paint so it will require regular cleaning to keep looking fresh and clean. Sometimes we are called back to a site with the concern that the paint has come off prematurely. We are always happy to visit our sites to troubleshoot and, in these cases, sometimes it is just that the paint is obscured by grime. A quick clean finds the paint looking as good as new underneath.
The road marking paint used is recommended for such applications as road ways, car parks, shopping centres, factories, and warehouses amongst others. It is important to note that the slip resistance qualities of the paint will be affected by water, other substances lying on the surface like oils, food, grease and over time, wear, and tear. Linemarkers South East Queensland recommends the line marking is kept clean and dry to avoid any potential slip hazard.
Forklifts And Line Marking Care
Whilst the road marking paint offers excellent resistance to tyre abrasion, sad to say that no road marking paint will survive harsh turning of skid steer vehicles or steel/concrete abrasion. Sometimes we are called out to fresh line marking that has been shredded by a forklift skidding tyres, wheels or castors on it. It is important to educate forklift operators not to do these sorts of manoeuvres ever but especially on freshly painted surfaces, fun as it may be for the driver at the time. Forklifts are available that have governors fitted to eliminate this practice. It is also possible to fit forklifts with white tyres. This stops soiling by the carbon black that is part of the construction of most forklift tyres.
Lifespan Of Line Marking
The environment, volume and size of traffic, and the surface it is painted on will all affect how long your line marking will last. There is no set lifespan of line marking due to these factors but looking after your painted areas as recommended here will help. The good news is that even with heavy traffic, when looked after line marking can last well. Here are a couple of photos to illustrate this. The first photo shows a red walkway freshly painted. We went back a few years later, and it was grubby, but the paint still was doing its job on a highly active site as in photo two.
Whilst we are looking at walkways, here is blue one still looking fresh after a few years but obviously, it does not have the forklift traffic like the red walkways in the other photos.
Should you have any further queries in relation to looking after your new line marking please do not hesitate to contact our office on
07 3277 2448 or use our contact form. We are always happy to look after our valued clients.
