Getting a new professional paint job on a cinder block wall in your commercial building is a great way to supplement a larger renovation project. However, if you don't fix any existing problems with the wall before you put new paint on it, you'll be forced to tear up a lot of the paint whenever you finally decide to start repairs. To help with determining whether it's safe to give your cinder block wall a new paint job, read these three tips.

Check To See Whether Any Area At The Bottom Of The Wall Is Damp

Even if there are no visible puddles at the bottom of your wall, any amount of dampness is a bad sign. Unless the wall is very near an entrance to your building, dampness probably means that water is seeping in through either the blocks' mortar or tiny cracks in the blocks themselves.

While applying a lot of paint to the wall will certainly decrease the amount of water that accumulates on the surface, water that would've otherwise escaped the wall will have an opportunity to accumulate in and damage the wall's interior. Therefore, before you commence with painting the wall, consult a professional with the expertise to figure out how water is seeping through the cinder blocks.

Run A Fingernail Between The Blocks' Mortar And Ensure That It Doesn't Chip Off Easily

It won't be easy to strengthen the mortar between the cinder blocks without damaging a lot of paint. So before the paint job, it's a good idea to run a fingernail between the blocks' mortar and see how easily it chips off.

If only a little bit of the mortar sticks to your fingernail by the time you traverse the entirety of the wall, you can be fairly certain that it's doing its job without problems. However, if just touching the mortar causes huge chunks of the substance to detach from the wall, address the problem as soon as you can.

Put Your Head Against The Wall To Spot Any Blocks That Are Sticking Out

Any cinder block that isn't perfectly in line with the rest of the wall could be a sign of deeper structural problems. To determine whether any cinder blocks are sticking out farther than they should, put one of your ears against the blocks and gaze down the entirety of the wall.

Investigate any blocks that you can see more easily than others the same distance away. Even if the abnormality is subtle enough that you wouldn't notice it from looking at the wall normally, partially torn up mortar around the block in question should be fairly easy to see.

Once you're ready for a professional paint job, contact a company like Pro-Guard Painters Paint Distribution.