I was called to a condo garbage room that had been repainted the summer before — the walls were already peeling in sheets, and the room still smelled like the bins
A property manager asked me last spring to look at the garbage room on the P1 level of her building. It had been painted the summer before. By spring the paint was hanging off the lower walls in sheets, there were grey stains around every bin, and the room smelled even when it was empty. The paint was a good wall paint. It was the wrong product for a room that gets hosed down every week. This post covers how to coat a garbage and recycling room so it can be washed and stays clean. For property managers and condo boards, not homeowners.
1. Ordinary wall paint is not made to be hosed down
Most garbage rooms are washed weekly, sometimes more, with a hose or a pressure washer, a degreaser and a disinfectant. A regular acrylic wall paint is fine for a scrub with a cloth. It is not made to sit under running water and cleaning chemicals every week. Water gets behind the film through pinholes in the block, the paint softens, and it lets go, starting at the bottom, where the water and the bins hit.
Once it starts peeling, the room gets harder to clean. Bare block acts like a sponge: it soaks up whatever leaks out of the bins, and that is where a lot of the smell lives.
What to look at: Check the bottom metre of the walls and the area around the floor drain. Then ask your cleaner how often the room is washed, and with what. That tells you what the coating has to survive.
2. Most of the job happens before any coating goes on
Loose paint has to come off, all of it, down to paint that is still well bonded or to bare block. Then the walls are washed with a degreaser, rinsed with clean water, and left to dry. Garbage room walls carry grease and residue from the bins, and a coating put over that will fail the same way the last paint did.
Drying is the step that gets rushed. A block wall that was just washed can hold water for days, especially below grade. A simple test: tape a square of clear plastic to the wall overnight. If the underside is wet in the morning, or the block under it is darker, the wall is not ready.
What to look at: Ask your painter how long they will leave between washing and coating, and whether they will check that the walls are dry. “Next morning” is usually not long enough in a below-grade room.
3. Fill the block, then use a coating made for washing
Concrete block has to be filled before it can take a smooth, washable finish. A block filler closes the pores so the topcoat forms a continuous film instead of bridging over pinholes, which I go into in more detail in painting concrete block walls. Without it, every pinhole lets water in behind the coating.
Over the filler goes a coating built for wash-down: usually a two-part epoxy, or another high-performance coating rated for frequent washing and cleaning chemicals, in a semi-gloss or gloss finish so it wipes clean. I like a light colour on the upper walls so the room is bright and dirt is easy to see, and a darker band on the bottom metre where the bins bang into the wall. A plastic bumper rail at bin height saves the coating a lot of damage, too.
What to look at: Look at the product your painter is quoting. If it is the same wall paint used in the corridors, ask what they would put on a wall that gets hosed down every week.
4. The room has to stay open while it is coated
Garbage does not stop for a painting job. The chute keeps dropping bags and the hauler still comes on its day. I usually do the room in halves: move the bins to one side, coat the other, then switch. The work is timed around pickup days, and if the chute has to be locked for a few hours, residents get a notice a few days ahead.
Two-part epoxies smell stronger than wall paint, and a garbage room is often next to the garage entrance or under suites, so the exhaust fan needs to run and a low-odour waterborne product helps. Most of the epoxies I use also want the room and the wall at about 10°C or warmer, which can be a problem in a P1 room in January, so fall is a good time to do it. And most of them need about a week before they are fully cured and can be washed hard, so the cleaner has to know when to stop and when to start again.
What to look at: Before the job starts, agree on a schedule with your cleaner and your hauler, and send residents a notice if the chute will be closed.
5. Don’t forget the door
The steel door and frame into a garbage room take a beating. Wet bins roll through, salt comes in from the garage, and the bottom of the frame usually rusts first. If the walls are being coated, the door and frame belong in the same scope: rust cleaned off, a rust-inhibiting primer, and a tough topcoat. The floor is a separate system with its own products, which I touch on in my post about protective coatings.
What to look at: Look at the bottom 30 centimetres of the garbage room door frame. If the paint is bubbling or there is rust, add it to the scope.
What to do if you’re seeing any of this
If your garbage room is peeling, stained, or smells even when it has just been cleaned, a walk through the room and a look at the cleaning routine usually tells me what it needs. I work with condominium corporations and property managers across Ottawa — Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, Orleans, Stittsville and Westboro — to strip, fill and coat garbage and recycling rooms so they can be washed, without closing the chute for more than a few hours at a time. Call 613.325.3011 or email yasir@heims.ca.
— Yasir, HEIMS Construction
HEIMS Construction is an Ottawa-based commercial painting and drywall contractor serving condominium corporations, property managers and institutional clients across the Ottawa area. Fully licensed and insured, with $5M commercial general liability coverage.