A review of Brookes workwear

Dressed for the cold weather

In this cold weather a good jacket is essential, I recently had a Result jacket from Brookes delivered. The jacket and a pair of work trousers arrived next day which was good, as reliable delivery for any work equipment is a must. With all the snow that’s on the ground at the moment it’s nice to have a warm jacket and that’s certainly what you get with this 3 in 1 Result R68 jacket. The waterproof and windproof jacket has well made both outer and inner parts, the outer jacket incorporates Scotchlite reflective material.

Work Wear

As a decorator I wear overalls most of the time, the trousers or shorts (in the summer) I wear under these need to be well fitting and sturdy. It is also important to be smart and presentable, when doing estimates onsite it is always good to remember you are entering someone’s home or office.

The Dickies Redhawk knee pad trousers from brookes workwear that I have in Black are a good fit and true to the sizing given online. They have all the pockets you would expect and need from this style of cargo pant trouser, plus they have knee pad pouches for if you require padding. They are a reasonable price work trouser and look smart enough to wear for all aspects of my working day, from hands on painting and decorating to meeting with clients and suppliers.

A review of Dulux Trade Ecosure Undercoat and Gloss

Following on from my last review for TradeXpress, I am doing one this time for Dulux’s Ecosure range. Specifically I am reviewing the Ecosure water-based undercoat and water-based Gloss. Ecosure is Dulux Trade paint that reduces the impact on the environment even further than their standard paints by 30%. This means even lower VOC‘s.

I have never been a big fan of water-based topcoats and have not got on well with them in the past, so was interested to see how things have changed and improved.

Dulux Ecosure Water-Based Undercoat

I have been using water-based undercoat for many years now and I love it and I use it all the time so wasn’t too surprised to see this in the Ecosure range. Preparation is the same as for any other undercoat, i.e. abrade the surface, make sure the surface is sound, clean and dry. I applied the undercoat using a synthetic brush as recommended for this type of paint, and I was pleased with the results, I was using white undercoat and going over a cream colour. Coverage was good, with good opacity, for a strong colour change a second coat is advised.

I was slightly disappointed with the drying time of 6 hours, this obviously depends on the situation you are working in but the undercoat I am use to using only takes 1-2 hours to dry, so I had to leave the undercoat to dry fully overnight. Coming back in the morning the undercoat had dried leaving a good surface to apply the Gloss too.

The coverage is around 16m² which is only slightly under the standard undercoat coverage. The smell, well being a low VOC and water-based paint the smell was low. I know a lot of people hate the smell of oil-based undercoats and Gloss so will be pleasantly surprised by this paint.

Ecosure Water-Based undercoat comes in pure brilliant white but can be colour mixed, it comes in 2.5L and 5L tins, prices are around £27 and £47 respectively and a colour mixing starts at around £30.
The datasheet for Ecosure Undercoat is 528.

Dulux Ecosure Water-Based Gloss

Like I said in my introduction, I’ve never been a big fan of water-based topcoats so was a little dubious about what this Gloss could do. I applied the Gloss over my previously prepared and Ecosure water-based undercoated surface that I had left to dry overnight.

Continue reading Dulux Trade Ecosure

What’s the colour of the year?

ICI paints and AkzoNobel have come up with the upcoming trends for the coming year, through their international research they have come up with a range of colours they think will be in trend throughout 2012.

The colour of the year 2012 is……. 10YR 21/436 (also known as Firecracker 4).

“The Colour of the year is a blushing, lively, juicy red

Red is held in high regard around the world for its many symbolic purposes.

The colour red offers many possibilities: contrasting one colour, bringing out a certain depth or cool quality in the next, allowing a third to recede. Like the jester in a deck of cards, it can change the game in an instant and brighten your outlook in unpredictable ways.”

Quote from Dulux Trade website

You can see more of this years colour schemes here:
Dulux Trade website or here:
http://www.colourfutures.com and download the Colour Futures book.

If you would like to work out how much of the colour of the year (10YR 21/436) or any other colour you need to buy, use our FREE Paint Calculator.