Maintaining a rating as one of America’s top ski resorts doesn’t stop at Deer Valley, Utah, when the snow melts and visitors go home. It’s a year-round challenge that requires the best resources possible. Because our reputation for quality is well established, when I tell people we rely on water-based coatings to protect exterior steel and enhance its appearance, I often get looks of disbelief. We’ve used water-based paint since Deer Valley opened, and we’ve had great success with it.
What many people don’t realize is that coatings technology has come a long way in the last several years. Performance and durability have been added to the widely-recognized benefits of water-based coatings — ease of application, elimination of solvents and fast cleanup. The newest water-based coatings can even be applied over surfaces from which loose rust and flaking paint have been brushed away, and they can be applied over most existing solvent-based enamel finishes. All this saves time and labor, contributing to overall economy in lift equipment maintenance.
Eleven years ago, when we installed the first five chair lifts at Deer Valley, all towers and terminals were painted with one of the earliest water-based industrial maintenance products. Those protective topcoats over a zinc-rich primer lasted nine years with only routine touch-ups. While the original Deer Valley green color faded somewhat, most of the paintwork was sound, so minimal surface preparation was required for refinishing.
Selected for their ease of application and environmental virtues, those original water-based coatings proved they could perform as well as, or better than, solvent-based paint, so it was natural that we considered water-based coatings for a $6 million expansion program in addition to extensive maintenance work in the summer of 1990.
The expansion included installation of three new triple chairlifts and a new detachable quad chairlift, opening a third mountain for lift-served skiing and expansion of snowmaking and restaurant facilities. We also refinished 80 percent of the towers on existing lifts.
For this ambitious program, we selected a new generation water-based coating, the Rust-Oleum Labor Saver 5200 System High Performance Acrylic Enamel, which the manufacturer claims outperforms solvent-based enamels in corrosion and weather resistance and has high color and gloss retention and resistance to chalking. The new acrylic enamel won’t lift most previous coatings, so it’s ideal for use on both existing paintwork and new equipment.
Vertical surfaces on towers and terminals stay in pretty good shape, but the horizontal surfaces take a beating from cables and lift personnel, so some wire brushing and spot priming of bare metal patches was necessary. We painted existing towers by rappelling down from the top. A man dropped down, sprayed half of the tower and then went back to the top to come down the other side.
Some of those towers are quite inaccessible, so we had to transport gas-powered spray equipment and supplies as close as possible to the towers where necessary. In difficult terrain, only three or four towers were finished each day. It was a big effort, but those 10-year-old towers now look like new.
The new lift equipment was much easier to paint. As towers and structures arrived from Lift Engineering Company, they were laid out in the parking lot for finishing. Using the same Wagner gas-powered airless spray equipment we bought 10 years ago, our crew applied a coat of water-based primer to a dry film thickness (dft) of 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 mils over the shop prime coat provided by the manufacturer. The Deer Valley green topcoat, thinned with 1/2 pint of water per gallon, was then applied to a dft of 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 mils. Because of windy conditions, two or more passes over the surface were frequently required to achieve the desired dry film thickness and some final touch-up was done after the towers were carried by helicopter to their final position on the mountain.
We used more than 400 gallons of green plus a lot of white trim and gray primer — all Labor Saver water-based acrylic enamel. Because the work was done outdoors, changing weather conditions were a challenge for our painters. In the early morning, they frequently had to wait for the steel surfaces to warm up and dry enough to start painting, and they had to be alert for sudden afternoon thunderstorms, which are common in the Wasatch Mountains in the summer. But wind was the greatest annoyance. Our painters became very proficient at coping with the wind, but still, overspray was common. Using water-based coatings made things easier, however, because painters could wash off their goggles when they became covered with swirling overspray.
In general, we found that by using water-based coatings, we could keep everything cleaner and there was less concern about solvent toxicity, air pollution and objectionable odors. Easy mixing and soap-and-water clean-up were other important benefits.
Eleven years ago when we were building Deer Valley and getting ready for our first season, every detail was carefully planned and carried out, including superb accommodations, uncrowded runs groomed to perfection, friendly service and excellent appearance. Attention to detail is still paramount and management still believes in using the best resources available including protective coatings on outdoor equipment.
