A condo board asked me why their stairwells looked worse than the parking garage — nobody had painted them since the building opened
A condo board president walked me up one of her building’s exit stairwells after the corridors had been redone. The corridors looked new. The stairwell looked like it had been forgotten: grey scuffs along every landing, black marks where furniture had been dragged up on move-in day, rust spots on the steel door frames and flaking paint at the bottom of the block walls. Nobody had painted it since the building opened. This post covers why stairwells wear the way they do, and how to repaint them while the building stays occupied and the stairs stay usable. It’s for condo boards and property managers, not homeowners.
1. Stairwells get used more than anyone thinks
Boards tend to treat exit stairs as space nobody uses. Then I walk them and find the evidence. Residents take the stairs for one or two floors, staff use them for garbage and recycling runs, and movers use them whenever the elevator is booked. Every one of those trips rubs a bag, a cart or a shoulder along the same strip of wall on each landing.
Most stairwells were finished at turnover with the cheapest flat paint on the job. Flat paint doesn’t wash, so every attempt to clean a scuff leaves a shiny patch that looks worse than the mark did.
What to look at: Walk one stairwell top to bottom and look at the outside wall of each landing at hip and shoulder height. That band is where your repaint money will go.
2. Block walls and steel need different prep
Most condo stairwells are painted concrete block with steel doors, frames and handrails. Block that’s flaking at the bottom usually has moisture or salt behind it, from wet boots or a damp ground floor, and it needs to be scraped back and primed with a block-suitable primer before any finish goes on. I go through block prep in more detail in painting concrete block walls.
Steel door frames rust first at the bottom, where mop water and salt sit. Those spots get cleaned back to sound metal and spot-primed with a rust-inhibiting primer. Painting straight over the rust just means it bleeds through again in a year or two.
What to look at: Check the bottom 12 inches of the door frames on the ground floor and the parking levels. Orange spots or bubbled paint there mean the steel needs prep, not just a coat of paint.
3. The stairs have to stay usable
This is the part that needs planning. These are exit stairs, so you can’t just close one for a week. On most buildings I work one stairwell at a time, keep the other one fully open, and keep the stairwell being painted passable with a clear walking path, so nobody is trapped behind wet paint or a drop sheet. Your fire safety plan and your property manager decide the exact rules for your building, and I work to those.
I also pick products for the space. Stairwells have almost no fresh air, so I use low-odour paints that dry fast enough to recoat the same day. Doors get painted early in the day so they’re dry and closeable well before evening.
What to look at: Ask whoever is quoting how they’ll keep each stairwell usable during the work, and how long each one will be under way. If they don’t have an answer, they haven’t painted many occupied buildings.
4. Pick a finish that can be washed
The fix for the scuff problem is a scrubbable finish. On stairwell walls I usually suggest an eggshell or satin in a durable product, and a darker or semi-gloss band along the lower part of the wall on the landings where the carts hit. Then cleaning staff can actually wipe marks off instead of painting over them.
Handrails are their own job. They take more abuse than anything else in the stairwell and need a harder coating. I cover that in stairwell handrail coatings.
What to look at: Try wiping a scuff with a damp cloth. If it smears or leaves a shiny patch, your current finish is too flat for a stairwell.
5. Do it in winter, between the bigger projects
Stairwells are interior work with no outside weather risk, which makes them good winter jobs when exterior painting has stopped. They also fit well right after a corridor repaint, when the contrast between new corridors and old stairwells is most obvious to owners.
What to look at: If your corridors were done in the last few years, add the stairwells to your next budget, and ask for the price per stairwell so the board can phase it.
What to do if you’re seeing any of this
If your stairwells are scuffed, flaking or rusting at the frames, I’ll walk them with you, note what each one needs, and give you a scope that keeps one stairwell open at all times and fits a winter schedule. I work with condominium corporations and property managers across Ottawa — Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, Orleans, Westboro and Stittsville. 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.