# Painting dropped ceiling tiles/grids



## robertraz (Jan 6, 2012)

Hi everyone i have few questions regarding painting dropped ceiling tiles/grids with airless sprayer


Job description: it's a 3500 sqft area. existing ceiling color is white, color to be painted is black. The celing height is 10ft 


what primer/paint would you use?
how much paint is going to be used?


would you use a mini scaffold or the extension pole (attachment of the airless sprayer) and paint it from the ground.



thank you in advance.....


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## ohiohomedoctor (Dec 26, 2010)

I would spray the tiles and grid separately especially going from white to black. The grid would use fine tip SW DTM no primer. Pads would use pro block primer and super paint minimum. The pads will eat up a lot of paint. Figure it up by square foot then tripple it for considering the second coat. I would use my stilts to spray the grids.


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## griz (Nov 26, 2009)

You are biting off a huge chunk you won't want to chew...

Grids are a PITA to paint.

To insure coverage you will have to remove tiles to paint...

Depending on material they absorb paint erratically....and a lot of it...


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## Gough (May 1, 2010)

griz said:


> You are biting off a huge chunk you won't want to chew...
> 
> Grids are a PITA to paint.
> 
> ...


I'll certainly second this. When we've done it, we remove all of the tiles if they are being painted at all. If it's just the grids, we prop up the tiles with shims, stir sticks, or scraps of 1x, and then use minirollers on the gird. The tiles do absorb a lot of paint. Since ~2/3rds of that is water, that can be another problem. That can mean that the tiles have to be racked carefully to dry or they will sag and end up warped.


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## Paintpimp (Nov 15, 2006)

There is a product designed specifically for this. Its call ProCoustic by ProCoat. This is their website and is available at SW.
http://procoat.com/

Problem with painting tiles is that you take away the fire rating and the acoustic values. This product maintains the fire rating and actually improves acoustic values. Goes about 300 sq ft per gallon on smoothish tiles, two coats, dry falls in 2 feet, does not bridge gap between tile and grid work, 2 coats of black should cover, no need for primer unless you have water spots


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## summithomeinc (Jan 3, 2011)

ohiohomedoctor said:


> I would spray the tiles and grid separately especially going from white to black. The grid would use fine tip SW DTM no primer. Pads would use pro block primer and super paint minimum. The pads will eat up a lot of paint. Figure it up by square foot then tripple it for considering the second coat. I would use my stilt to spray the grids.


I agree, I would add that sometimes the paint will fisheye on the grid if you don't clean it first. If the room isn't too big I use spray Kilz to prime the grid first. I would definitly test a small area of grid to see how the paint reacts.


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## painterof4 (Aug 30, 2013)

*painterof4*

I painted some grids after they took out the tiles. they were white, we painted them black. turned out good with one coat of porter paint. but man there was a lot of over spray.


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