DH Painter & Decorator paints metal gates, railings and handrails in Wootton, 2.4 miles south of Northampton town centre in NN4. That includes bare galvanised steel that needs an etch primer and older iron gates in the conservation area.
Bare galvanised steel on the High Street
Metalwork comes up by name in Wootton’s 2010 conservation area appraisal. It points to the bare galvanised railings and gate outside the medical centre at 36 High Street and asks for them to have a painted finish, because shiny zinc looks out of place among ironstone, limestone and Welsh slate. It is a useful example of a common problem with galvanised steel: it is installed bare, and if someone later paints it with ordinary gloss, the paint peels off in sheets within a year or two.
Paint struggles to grip zinc. New or weathered galvanising has to be degreased and then treated with a mordant solution or an etch primer made for galvanised metal. Once that has done its job, the topcoats bond to it properly. Our main metal gate and railing painting page covers the steps in more detail. For galvanised railings that have already been painted and are now flaking, we take off everything loose before starting the primer system again.
Iron gates in the old village
Where older village houses have domestic iron gates, they are typically hung on posts set into the stone boundary walls that the appraisal treats as the village’s defining feature. On these the rust tends to start at the hinges, the bottom rail and wherever the metal meets stone, because that is where water collects. We wire brush and scrape back to sound metal, use a rust-inhibiting primer on bare spots and build up the finish in two topcoats. Cast iron is brittle, so we don’t hammer at heavy scale on decorative work. Many of these gates also carry decades of old paint layers; where those are sound and well bonded we key them and paint over, and where they are lifting we take them back, as a thick, cracked build-up holds water against the metal underneath.
Where the post is leaded or mortared into stone, cracked fixings let water in and the expanding rust can split the stone. We will point that out, as it needs a mason before painting will last. In the conservation area, a traditional dark colour normally sits well against the stone, and on a listed building we keep to the existing colour unless the council agrees otherwise.
Handrails and footway safety
The raised pavement outside 44 to 50 High Street has a concrete and iron handrail beside a busy through route. Any handrail on or next to the footway, whether public or private, has to stay usable while it is painted. We work in sections, sign wet paint clearly, pick quick-drying products where they suit, and leave a dry length people can hold. High Street parking is restricted by double yellow lines, so we plan van stops and deliveries before we start.
Commercial and estate metalwork
Wootton also has larger sites. If a school, pub or shop in the parish has painted railings or gates, the work needs to fit around its hours, and for schools such as Caroline Chisholm, Northampton High School, Preston Hedges and Wootton Primary that normally means the holidays. On the Wootton Fields and Simpson Manor estates, metal side gates and garden railings get the same check for metal type before we choose the primer. Our Wootton page covers other work in the parish, and the cost guide explains what affects pricing.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
