Yes, and on most industrial buildings it’s the sensible call. A properly specified coating brings a tired profiled steel elevation back for roughly a quarter of what re-sheeting costs, and buys another 10 to 15 years.
The catch is the substrate. Paint goes over live corrosion or a chalked, dirty surface and it’ll be peeling by the second winter, which is where most of the horror stories on industrial estates come from.
Can You Paint Over Metal Cladding?
Metal cladding can be painted when the steel core is sound and the original factory coating is still stuck to it. Perforation, delamination and widespread cut edge corrosion rule it out. Chalking, fading and light edge rust don’t.
Profiled cladding leaves the factory with a coil-applied coating bonded to a galvanised steel core, usually plastisol, polyester or PVDF. That coating is the only thing between the steel and the weather. Once it goes, the steel starts going, and it speeds up from there.
Recoating puts the barrier back without touching the sheets.
There’s a rough test you can do from a cherry picker. Press a thumbnail into the coating on a south-facing elevation. Chalky but firm, and the sheet will take a coating. If it flakes off and you’re looking at bare or pitted metal, that panel needs changing before anyone opens a tin.
What Condition Does the Cladding Need to Be In?
Clean, dry and mechanically sound, with all loose coating and active corrosion taken off. Preparation eats somewhere between half and two thirds of the labour on a refurbishment, and it’s the thing that decides how long the finish lasts. Nothing else comes close.
Low-pressure washing with a fungicidal wash comes first. That lifts the dirt, the algae and the chalked layer of degraded resin. High pressure gets used carefully, because water forced past a lap joint ends up in the insulation and you won’t see it again until the ceiling tiles stain.
Cut edge corrosion is a separate job. It’s the rust that creeps out from sheet edges at gutters, ridges and overlaps, where the coil coating was cut on site and raw steel was left sitting there. Wire brush it back to a sound edge and use a proper edge-sealing system. A topcoat over the top of it does nothing except hide it for a season.
Perforated panels, split fixings and failed sealants all get sorted at this stage. Painting a leaking lap doesn’t stop it leaking.
How Long Before Cladding Needs Recoating?
Most factory-coated cladding wants recoating somewhere between 15 and 30 years from install. Polyester goes first, often inside 15 on an exposed elevation. Plastisol is the one that keeps going, and 25 to 30 years is normal before it needs anything.
Buildings don’t age evenly though. South and west elevations take the UV and the driving rain, so they chalk years ahead of the north face of the same unit. Coastal sites and anywhere with industrial fallout nearby run faster again.
Most owners ring up when the place starts looking scruffy rather than when the coating has actually failed. Fading and chalking are cosmetic. Rust bleeding out of the sheet edges isn’t, and that’s the point where a manageable job turns into an expensive one.
What Paint Goes On Metal Cladding?
Two or three coats of an industrial system built for external steel. Normally a corrosion-inhibiting primer, then a high-build topcoat. Solvent-based or water-based both work depending on the site and what the neighbours will tolerate.
Single-pack polyurethane and modified acrylics do most of the cladding work in the UK, because thin-gauge steel moves every day with the temperature and those systems move with it. Two-pack epoxy belongs on structural steelwork and internal environments. Put it on a profiled elevation and it’ll crack, because it’s too brittle for a sheet that expands and contracts that much.
Colour matching catches people out. Goosewing Grey, Merlin Grey, Juniper Green and the rest all have known equivalents, and if the match is off on a partial refurbishment you’ll see it from the car park.
Airless spray is how it goes on. Spray gives you even film build across the profile. A roller leaves the crowns thin and the troughs heavy, which is exactly the wrong way round for where the water sits. Brush and roller are for cut-ins and detailing.
Is Recoating Cheaper Than Re-sheeting?
Considerably. Spray-applied recoating typically runs around £15 to £30 per square metre. Re-sheeting a clad elevation generally sits somewhere between £60 and £120. Height, access, condition and whether you’re changing colour all move those numbers, so treat them as a starting point rather than a quote.
The bigger saving usually isn’t the rate though. Recoating happens from outside with the building still working. Re-sheeting opens the envelope up, and on a live distribution centre or a food production unit that can mean shutting a bay down for a fortnight.
Re-sheeting still wins in the right circumstances. Widespread perforation, soaked insulation, an envelope that no longer meets thermal requirements, or a unit being repurposed for something else. In those cases new paint on old sheets is money down the drain.
Why Isn’t This a Normal Painting Job?
Because it’s work at height over fragile surfaces, off ropes or a MEWP, and that puts it under a different set of regulations to anything a decorating firm deals with. Rooflights on an ageing industrial unit look identical to the sheets around them from above, which is how people end up going through them.
Overspray is the other reason. An airless gun on a windy elevation will find every car in the yard, every neighbouring unit and every pallet of stock within reach. Containment, masking and calling it off when the wind picks up are part of the method statement, not an afterthought.
There’s also the overlap problem. Half the cladding jobs that get quoted as painting turn out to be part roofing, because the cut edges, the gutters and the fixings all need attention before anything gets sprayed. Contractors like Anglia Decor handle cladding spraying, cut edge treatment and roof coating in one go, which avoids a painter turning up and finding half the job isn’t paint at all.
The Practical Version
Get up there and look at the substrate before anyone quotes a colour. Budget properly for preparation, because that’s where the job is won. Specify a coating made for thin-gauge external steel, not whatever’s left in the store.
And do it before the cut edges start bleeding. Leave it another five winters and you’re not having a conversation about paint any more.
