Road Warriors - Collision Repair Magazine

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Volume 6

Issue 1

Road Warriors

Written by David Ros

Saturday, 17 March 2007

DuPont tours the country to educate customers on low VOC coatings.
DuPont Performance Coatings took its waterborne show on the road in an attempt to inform their customers of the impending lower VOC emissions legislation.
This new legislation will mandate repairers to use refinishing products which emit one half of their current level of VOCs. The educational tour has also been undertaken to re-assure the company’s customers that DuPont has the technology in place for their collision repair facilities to make the switch to low VOC coatings right now.
Interest was high as more than 100 repairers attended the second leg of DuPont’s 40-stop cross-country tour at the Delta Toronto East, seeking further information on how this legislation, set to be written into law by the end of 2007 will affect their shops.
“We’re ready to go right now,” says Brian Edwards, National Sales Manager for DuPont. “We have three pilot facilities up and running with low VOC coatings for each of our three brands, and we also have the product available in our warehouses ready to ship out.”

The challenges
The seminar outlined some of the biggest challenges shops are going to face from the proposed legislation, which currently has a start date of January 1, 2009.
While the lower VOC topcoat, clearcoat and primer will remain solvent borne, as of right now, the only basecoat technology able to meet the government’s low VOC standards is waterborne.
Because of this, new training and equipment is required to achieve maximum efficiency using this technology.
Brian says the most important thing for repairers is to develop their business plans and to get their facilities equipped and staff trained with the low VOC coatings as soon as possible.
“It’s not rocket science, but it is planning,” he says.
At the very least, most spray booth equipment will require some upgrades in order to gain the increased airflow required to cure waterborne basecoat at optimum efficiency.
For this reason, it is recommended for shops to contact their local jobber or paint company sales representative in order to find out the upgrades that need to be made to current equipment in order to make the transition.
Just as critical to a facility’s overall success is the need for proper waterborne training. Even if a technician has been refinishing vehicles for years, it is important they receive waterborne training because it follows a completely different process.
For example, it might take three coats of the current solvent borne basecoat to paint a vehicle, if applied properly the same job can be done in 1 ½ coats with waterborne basecoat.
“This highlights the need to be trained before conversion,” Brian says. “If your shop makes the upgrade and you follow the same refinishing process you always have, you’ll be bankrupt.”
DuPont’s three main training facilities are fully up and running with waterborne technology, and Brian says they will offer waterborne training for free to their customers who sign up first, because as he notes there isn’t much time left.
“We lobbied the government for a later start date of January 1, 2011, because we wanted to ensure there was enough time to make an orderly transition,” says Brian. “But as of right now, upon further government review, the proposed legislation is still set to kick in at the beginning of 2009.”
DuPont low VOC Project Manager Dave Warburton says based on the data collected from Europe and California (which already have low VOC legislation in place) that every collision repair facility is capable of making the transition to low VOC coatings without facing very much difficulty.
“It is our opinion that every shop can not only make the transition, if you act now, you will avoid the inevitable backlog and you will also have the opportunity to market your shop as a green facility being among the first to convert to the lower VOC technology,” says Dave.

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