Days Of Wine And Wind


By Jen Kramer
   

We can all picture the classic winery setting: huge wooden barrels, shelves of expensive bottles, tables of oenophiles, sipping and chatting in hushed tones of reverence and contentment. Well, this winery story sets that image on its head.

Sometimes when a wine is so hugely popular, it can no longer be accommodated in a small boutique setting. The brand featured in this project is in fact so widely popular that production has been moved to enormous, state-of-the-art, stainless steel tanks, which is where our coatings crew, Tom Burk and his team at Phoenix Coatings enter the picture.

  Wine And Earthquakes Don’t Mix

“We were called out to Lodi,” says Burk, “to insulate and coat the exteriors of 84 stainless steel tanks for a major winery.” It sounds straightforward, right? Not quite. “According to the specs, we would be spraying foam and coatings inside a spray booth, leaving the bottom 4' (1.22m) unfoamed and uncoated so that earthquake supports could be installed. Then the tanks would be taken outside the booth, craned into place, the earthquake braces would be installed, and we would finish.”

Although Dionysus, the ancient god of wine, was known in part for “making the earth move” through the ecstasy of wine, it seems that the vineyard was doing its part to guarantee that the wine survived any actual earth movement—even if it added an extra step to the coating project. The high-tech tanks had to be protected with bracing and coatings.

Roughly the same configurations, the tanks came in three distinct sizes. Burk describes the stainless steel tanks: “There were 12 tanks that held 100,000 gallons (378,541.18L). These were 21' 9" (6.40m 22.86cm) in diameter and 36' (10.97m) high. There were 32 tanks holding 52,000 gallons (196,841.41L). These were 15' 6" (4.57m 15.24cm) in diameter and 36' (10.97m) high. And there were 40 tanks holding 26,000 gallons (98,420.71L). These were 12' 6" (3.66m15.24cm) in diameter and 28' (8.53m) high.” In spite of their capacity, all of the tanks were foamed and coated in the same manner.  

“We Will Coat No Tank Before Its Time”     

“The vineyard set up a spray booth using scaffolding and nursery windscreens,” explains Burk. “We knew we had to work quickly since we were going to be spraying the coating topcoat on the same day that we would be spraying the foam insulation because we didn’t want the foam to oxidize.” This principle would apply to the work once the tanks were in place as well. With this many tanks, the vineyard would be installing them while the Phoenix team was still spraying in the booth. So Burk devised a plan from the beginning to facilitate things once the project got rolling.

“Ultimately we had two guys spraying in the booth with two crew members outside of it. Then working in the field, about a ¼ mile (0.40km) away from the spray booth, we had a crew of eight to 10 doing the same process on the bottom 4' (1.22m) of the tanks, once they were installed. Also, we were doing another project in Cutler, California at the same time the winery project started.  I didn’t want us to get behind schedule so I asked a friend of mine Mike Wiltshire, owner of Wiltshire Urethane in San Dimas California, to help us out for a couple of weeks. Which he did.  Even though we are competitors we can also be friends and help each other.”
Although they work quickly, the Phoenix team always works safely. Before climbing onto scissor lifts, they climbed into Tyvek protective suits, 3M respirators, gloves, goggles, and 5-point safety harnesses from Miller Fall Protection.

Then, the crew used North Star 4,000 psi pressure washers and plain water to pressure wash the stainless steel surface.

“Using hydraulic-powered Graco H40 and XP3 and an air-powered Gusmer Minute Man, we spray-applied a 2-4 mil (0.05mm to 0.10mm) prime coat of General Coatings’ Ultra-Bond 20 Vinyl Wash Primer,” Burk states.  The two-component primer was followed by 3" (7.62cm) of General Coatings Ultra-Thane 2.5 lb. (1.13kg) density spray polyurethane foam (SPF). The ridged foam contains no ozone depleting chemicals and acts as thermal insulation against the swings in climate that guarantee good grape growing soil, but may take a toll on wine as it ages in outdoor stainless steel tanks.

Once cured, the SPF was immediately coated with a 40 mil (1.02mm) base coat of General Coatings’ Ultra-Shield 2800. The two-component, aromatic, elastomeric polyurea has 100% solids, features excellent flexibility, impact resistance, and is fast-setting.

“The Ultra-Shield 2800 was followed by a top coat of General Coatings’ Ultra-Shield 3000 aliphatic polyurethane elastomeric coating spray-applied at 10 mils (0.23mm),” Burk says. He explains that the high-solids, high-build coating is often specified in cases such as the tanks in which UV weathering, color and gloss retention, soil-, chemical-, and abrasion-resistance are necessary.

Abrasion resistance? From birds? Yes. But mainly from the wind blowing debris into the tanks. “In fact, the wind was a challenge on this project,” he says. As it happens they may have been helping out Dionysus, but Zephyrus, the wind god, was going to have his say too.

  Wind And Wine

“If you look on a topographical map, you can see that the wind comes in an almost straight shot from the ocean through a canyon and funnels down right into Lodi. It’s almost like a wind tunnel effect,” Burk describes. For the crew foaming and coating among scaffolding hung with nursery curtains—and in scissor lifts—it could be an unnerving effect.

“Once we were working inside the containment, we tied the fabric to the scaffold and to the tank so that in the alleys and around the tanks, we wouldn’t have the winds.”

Unsecured drapes would sail away. “At one point, the winds were so strong that they bent the scaffolding. Fortunately, nobody was working that day. We actually had to take 12 days off due to the high winds,” recounts Burke.

But containment drapes blowing away, and unscheduled wind days notwithstanding, Burk and his crew still finished the 84 tank job on time for a very pleased winery. When the demand for more state-of the art tanks arises, the vineyard knows who to call to insulate and coat their high-tech investment. After all, Burk and his crew are well-versed in spray foam and coatings, as well as dealing with an occasional curveball from Dionysus and his buddies.




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