Sunday, August 26, 2007

I got to go inside!!

This post is long overdue. Bianca has been patiently waiting to see these pictures . . .

Many months ago, the Town of Cary was building a water tower near us. See Post 1 and Post 2 about it. I took pictures of it at various stages. Then I noticed it had these funny things sticking off of it once it had been completely welded together. Come to find out after talking with the inspector, painter and builder of the tower they were . . .

Paint screen holders.

The Town splurged for these so no paint would fly off and land on other people's property while they were painting. The paint screen is the black fabric in the picture below. I know all of this because I talked with the experts there on site.






Paint screen and painter.

In this picture you can see the multiple coats they have to put on. There are a few primer coats and then multiple coats of the sky blue color that the Town of Cary has them paint on. Too bad they didn't put something more unique or exotic on it. The painter told me it would have only cost the town about $10,000 more to put something cool on the tower.









What do you think about this job? Could be fun but he was wrapped up in a jump suit from head to toe in the middle of summer.








I don't know how many people stop to see a tower being built but I of course was snapping my camera away. This draws attention so when the Inspector came over to see what I was doing I kindly told him I was a Watertower Aficionado and had a blog (at which time I handed him my business card). He said "Cool! Want to go inside?" I jumped for joy.





Here is the proof that I went inside a water tower. Plus, did you know they have to paint the inside also.







3 comments:

M. Lail said...

Wait -- they paint the INSIDE of them? 1) Isn't that a waste of money, and 2) Does that affect the water? Interesting!

Anonymous said...

I imagine it helps protect the metal from the effects of the water, and keeps any grime or particulates from the metal from leeching into the water. But yeah, I bet they have to be careful about the kind of paint the use. I wonder if they used to use lead-based paint in these things. And I wonder if they thought to repaint them all when they outlawed that kind of paint.

Kelley Dennings said...

All good questions/responses. I know the paint was "special" which is why painting a water tower is so costly.