Click here to access the updated standards
The PCA/FCA Industry Standards have been updated and are ready for industry use. For decades, these standards (formerly PDCA Industry Standards) have served painting contractors as a blueprint for delivering quality painting, coating and decorative finish work. They are nationally recognized consensus documents for the painting and coating industry’s work practices.
FCA has worked diligently with the PCA Industry Standards committee over the past two years to review every single standard line by line, condensing, refining, updating and removing redundancies. These standards were updated with input from contractors, manufacturers, engineers, architects, spec writers, association leaders and industry subject-matter experts. The standards are now jointly branded with FCA International, reflecting the collaboration between the two organizations on this effort. FCA has partnered with the PCA since 2014 to enhance and advance the painting and coating industries.
What Contractors Need to Know About the Changes
The updated standards clearly define “properly painted surfaces” without assigning responsibility. For example, the updated standards define what damage by other parties constitutes, but it doesn’t define who must pay for it. Responsibility assignments are left to the contract documents. The PCA Industry Standards committee removed assignment of responsibility from the standards to enable architects, owners, general contractors and the industry to adopt them as true industry standards.
Per the updated standards, a properly painted surface is “one that is applied in accordance with the contract documents, the manufacturer’s printed Technical Data Sheet(s) and is uniform in appearance, color, texture, hiding and sheen. It is virtually free of foreign material, lumps, skins, runs, sags, holidays, misses, or insufficient coverage. It is also a surface free of drips, splatters, spatters, spills, cracks or overspray caused by the Painting Contractor’s workforce or its assigns.”
What’s Next
The revised PCA/FCA Industry Standards allow the entire industry to understand what an appropriate finish looks like. The next step is to disseminate them to our industry’s decision makers and trainers. Through joint efforts with industry partners, the standards will be integrated into the specification manuals and utilized by key industry decision-makers. This integration will enable architects and other influential professionals to readily access and reference these standards.
The updated standards will also be provided to our industry’s training facilities for their use as they educate current and future applicators.
Accessing the Standards
The PCA Industry Standards can be downloaded from the FCA’s website at finishingcontractors.org/industry-standards. The standards cover:
- Touch up painting and damage repair
- Third party inspections
- Designation of paint color
- Responsibility for inspection and acceptance of surfaces prior to painting and decorating
- Benchmark sample procedures for paint and other decorative coating systems
- Acceptance of completed wallcovering
- Job sequencing
- Owner’s responsibility for maintenance of paints and coatings
- Definition of trade terms
- Measurement of surface area for estimating painting and decorating work
- Painter’s caulk, implied requirements
- Levels of block filler
- The inspection and acceptance of architectural paints on the interior surfaces of structures when dry film thickness is specified
- Levels of surface preparation for repainting and maintenance projects receiving architectural coatings
- Painting of shop primed substrates
- Wallcovering removal in preparation for new finishes or wallcovering
- Field painting of smooth faced tilt-up concrete
- Definition and application of decorative finishes
- Recommended protocol for job close out of painting and decorating projects
- Designation of stain and clear coating on new interior wood
- Cleaning surfaces using pressurized water
- Painting and decorating contractors implied exclusions from scope of work
- Recommended protocol for spot repairing existing finishes