Floor paint on the roof

[Cochise]

Hi all,

I've recently spent a lot of time scraping and prepping the roof of my narrowboat to be repainted. I am considering my options for the roof paint, with little experience as this is my first re-painting. I've been told about the difficulty of cleaning sandy mixed patches, so was wondering about covering the whole roof in a non-slip alternative. I have heard about someone covering their roof in a textured floor paint which worked well. Does anyone have any views on this or any advice on other non-slip textured roof paint would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks,

Martyn 

[Leo No2]

Sculptor, CRT's heritage boat at Stoke Bruerne, had its roof and internal hold sides painted with floor paint quite some time ago (and before my time of being involved).  I understand it is not UV stable but I do know that when the paint was removed from the roof at Braunston last autumn it was a long (and I understand expensive) job.  Likewise the paint on the inside of the hold has flaked very badly (we are 90% of the way to rubbing it back and painting it with a recommended Raddle Red type paint).  Sculptor's roof had so quite big dribbles (delightfully referred to as 'snots') on the hand rails which were as hard as iron and very difficult to remove.

If you value your boat I'd be inclined to, at the very least, go for a UV stable paint.

[Guest]

I did the roof some years ago with International garage floor paint. It worked well and lasted well, even though we don't treat our roof very well. then I did it more recently with some newer garage floor paint (forgotten what make) and it was dire. Water based rubbish and never again. 

Edited April 27, 2017 by Guest

[BEngo]

I used floor paint for years.  Then it went water based and is total crap. Now I use one of the raddles. Craftmaster has been good in red oxide colour and Symphony seems to be OK in  light grey.

N

[mark99]

Not that many floors made of steel.

[Athy]

9 hours ago, BEngo said:

I used floor paint for years.  Then it went water based and is total crap.

N

Absolutely right, and I wish that someone had explained this to me earlier. When I was doing up my Springer a few years ago I acted on a recommendation and repainted the roof using garage floor paint. It looked smart, but within weeks it has started to peel of in big flakes/slices. So I rubbed the roof down and did it all again. Same result.

Only afterwards did I learn that floor paint used to be oil-based, and would thus expand and contract with the heat, whereas now it is water-based and won't.

1 hour ago, mark99 said:

Not that many floors made of steel.

No, but garage floor paint used nevertheless to do the job well (see above for caveat).

[cuthound]

It is not difficult to keep sanded paint clean. I have a 60 foot boat with a cream roof, which readily shows the dirt.

I hose it over, scrub it with diluted  Aldi's caravan cleaner,  then rinse it off with a hose. Takes 45 minutes max.

 

Edited to add that in my experience no other "non slip" finish is a grippy as sanded paint. Our first shareboat initially had a plain painted roof, which was lethal when wet.

Edited April 28, 2017 by cuthound

[Bee]

You do have to be careful, cheaper floor paint is not waterproof, it is ok for a few splashes in a warehouse but if you get constantly wet areas it flakes off, I have used it and heartily wished I hadn't. Also you do need to get a good key for some genuine deck paints, after many efforts to get rid of the crap floor paint and layers of other stuff I got a sanding disc on an angle grinder and ground the b****** lot off.

[WotEver]

45 minutes ago, cuthound said:

It is not difficult to keep sanded paint clean. I have a 60 foot boat with a cream roof, which readily shows the dirt.

I hose it over, scrub it with diluted  Aldi's caravan cleaner,  then rinse it off with a hose. Takes 45 minutes max.

That was also my experience. (But a shorter boat so only about 25 minutes!)

[Dave Payne]

Mine has a plain painted roof to match the sides, as cuthound says its lethal walking along it in the wet, i did buy some paint to go over it this year, but after cutting around my vents and chimney it looks really, really shiny, and slippy.

Have now been thinking about a more grippy paint!

[Tony Brooks]

Or buy some non-slip additive and add to your paint. I have some by Hemple (was Blakes) that seems to be hard plastic almost powder.

[bizzard]

Stick magnets on your shoe soles. Bit noisy but safe.

[rusty69]

7 minutes ago, bizzard said:

Stick magnets on your shoe soles. Bit noisy but safe.

Not if he has a grp roof!

Edited April 28, 2017 by rusty69

[bizzard]

1 minute ago, rusty69 said:

Not if he has a grp roof!

In that case lots of little rubber suckers stuck on em instead, like proper yachting deck shoes which have hundreds of tiny suckers built into the soles.

[ditchcrawler]

Our roof is painted with Epifanes grey and is a smooth but none glossy finish, I use the roof all the time when locking to get on or off the boat and never had a problem slipping in the wet. The only problem I have had is rust bubbling through, but I did leave it out in the snow the first winter.

[WotEver]

33 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I did leave it out in the snow the first winter.

As opposed to tucking it up somewhere nice and warm?

[Sea Dog]

There's a big discount on roof paint right now as apparently no-one uses it any more.  I've bought a shed load and I'm gonna try painting my garage floor with it.

[mark99]

27 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

There's a big discount on roof paint right now as apparently no-one uses it any more.  I've bought a shed load and I'm gonna try painting my garage floor with it.

Sounds like a cunning plan. Make sure it states only for metal before putting on the concrete floor. 

[Cochise]

Thanks a lot everyone for all the tips and advice. Think I'll go with the proper uv stable stuff then. I've spent long enough prepping I don't want to have to give it another coat anytime soon. 

Cheers, 

Martyn 

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, WotEver said:

As opposed to tucking it up somewhere nice and warm?

I guess so

 

[hounddog]

22 hours ago, Leo No2 said:

on the hand rails which were as hard as iron and very difficult to remove.

 

Sounds like an ideal quality for deck paint.

More seriously, oil based floor paint is great, easy to use and hard as anything but it's not as cheap as it used to be.