Yellow safety lines in the basement of a 20 story building

I was asked to paint 2" yellow lines in the basement of an older highrise building. The lines are to provide marked zones for garbage can/ recycling cans, doorways, pathways, elevators,... etcetera. It's not an overbearing amount of work but I'm concerned that the several elevator shafts might pull up any paint odors or VOC's and updraft them up into the offices above. I wouldn't mind using an oil base epoxy or a polyurethane, but the fumes might be 'strong & lingering', and I don't know if there is any good water based paints or sealers out there for this? Otherwise, I was just thinking about masking of the lines, hitting them with a good traffic paint, then sealing them with a concrete sealer (Thermoplastic sealer has always worked good for me). At least this stuff would be hot enough to flash out rather quickly.. I'm thinking? Any suggestions?

Offices and not residential? It sounds like a 8:00pm Friday night job to me (which comes with a premium price). Epoxy or industrial enamel will probably stay wet too long to use and you will get foot prints in it. Try using a good premium acetone traffic paint like SW TM6527 covered with SW Armorseal 1K or something similar. This should allow quick turn around and being only foot traffic, should last a long time if the surface is prepped properly. The process won't be cheap and the Armorseal is certainly not cheap but it is one of the right products to use in this application. IMHO, concrete sealer is not an acceptable top coat for any paint. It is concrete sealer is not designed for covering paint. It is as the name implies, a concrete sealer and is usually designed to soak into the pores of the concrete not to stick on top of a paint to seal the paint & provide a wearing surface. For this purpose, you need something designed for this other than a concrete sealer.

My first question is why 2" lines. Did someone spec that? I would ask. Something like that can be a case of someone saw lines else where and pulled the 2 inch number out of their hat and it grew legs and stuck. I would ask because 3-3.5 would be far easier in my opinion.

Is there enough ventilation that you are planing on using a line striper or will you have to brush or roll or use an electric sprayer. if that's the case a 2 inch line may be easier.

Calif Striper wrote on Apr 15, 2015:Go to #3

My first question is why 2" lines. Did someone spec that? I would ask. Something like that can be a case of someone saw lines else where and pulled the 2 inch number out of their hat and it grew legs and stuck. I would ask because 3-3.5 would be far easier in my opinion.

A lot of safety lines are only 2 inch.

The narrowest I was ever asked to do was 2.5 and when they saw what they looked like they changed to 3". Was in a huge freezer building.

I do 2 inch lines all the time on b ball courts and tracks, never had a complaint. I normally use a 2-13 or a 2-15 tip and they look as good as my 4 inch lines. in what way do you mean a 2 inch line looks bad? just too small or the line itself doesn't look right?

ncstripe1 wrote on Apr 16, 2015:Go to #7

I do 2 inch lines all the time on b ball courts and tracks, never had a complaint. I normally use a 2-13 or a 2-15 tip and they look as good as my 4 inch lines.

^^^ This.