Paul Watts – Don't Meddle With These Metal Cleaning Products! - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Paul Watts from Watts Removal Products. You can read the interview below, watch the episode or listen to the podcast.

Karen Edwards: Hello, and welcome to Metal Cast by Metal Coffee Shop. My name is Karen Edwards, and joining me on today's episode is Paul Watts from Watts Removal Products. Welcome to Metal Cast, Paul.

Paul Watts: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Bright and early.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. Glad that you could be here. So for our listeners, would you just introduce yourself, please?

Paul Watts: Sure. My name is Paul Watts. I'm owner operator of Watts Removal Products. Watts Removal Products is one of the only products that's specialized in cleaning for Sherwin-Williams coil-coated metal panels. We have a product that is able to remove anything from a scuff mark to paint over spray to adhesive to small little maybe shards of rust or something that have fallen onto a metal panel. We have a product that can remove basically any mark from any surface.

Karen Edwards: Wow. Tell me a little bit about the history of Watts Removal Products. How did you get this started?

Paul Watts: Well, that history with Mark McDonald is something, let me tell you. Mark McDonald and I met at, funny enough, a CrossFit facility in Oregon City, Oregon, and we became really good workout partners. We'd work out in the mornings together and afternoons. We actually got into some competitions together with CrossFit, and I knew Mark was working with Sherwin-Williams. I didn't really know what department. But, I also have another business called Graffiti Removal Services that uses Watts Removal Products for removing any type of graffiti on brick or stone masonry and some other surfaces. I'd say, "Hey, mark, you work for Sherwin-Williams, we got this great product. We'd love to talk to you about getting into the stores." And Mark's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're a great guy, but that's not my really field." And kind of brushed me off a little bit, or a lot.

We continued working out, and being best of friends. He was at a trade show one day, I think it was IRE or MetalCon, and one of his largest OEMs came up to him and goes, "Look, I'm pulling all my business unless you figure out how to get an anti-graffiti coating on this metal." Because places like Los Angeles and I think in San Francisco now, they actually will require new buildings to have a ten-foot or twelve-foot anti-graffiti coating all the way around the building before the building goes up.

Karen Edwards: Smart.

Paul Watts: Yeah, very smart. Mark's in a panic. Right? He's in a panic. He's like, "Oh, Paul." He calls me up and says, "Hey buddy, good to hear from you. Good to talk to you again." So now he became a really good friend because I was helping him out of a jam a little bit, which Mark and I have been longtime friends anyway, so I was happy to do it. But really what we came down to is we sent all our product to Sherwin-Williams lab. The Sherwin-Williams lab had been doing R&D on anti-graffiti coating for two years, trying to figure out how they can do this. Unbeknownst to them, they just needed the right cleaner because the way that their panels are coated and the quality of the paint and how well it is, their panels are already anti-graffiti resistant. They just needed the right cleaner. They did twenty-five hundred hours’ worth of testing, tested the two products, Clean Sweep and Crossover, and basically scrapped the R&D program and said, "Just use Watts."

Karen Edwards: Wow. Wow.

Paul Watts: We've retained a lot of business. Sherwin-Williams has got a lot of business from basically being able to meet these specifications, the architectural specifications on anti-graffiti. It's worked out well on both ends. Now we support the builders and the OEMs and the contractors that are out there. Not only can Watts remove over spray and paint and graffiti, but we have a lot of new contractors now getting into metal roofs. They want to put on metal roofs, but they're siding contractor or they're a window contractor or the garage installer. They're a home remodeler. If you're remodeling the home, I'm a contractor myself, I don't say no to work. If I need a new roof, you're going to come to me.

Watts Removal Products can help with any facet of a contractor that's going in and maybe doing a full remodel. Not only can we help on the metal roof with bio growth and keeping it clean and maintenance and any types of, oops, we call them. A painter's up there and he kicks over a gallon bucket of white latex paint on a black roof because he is painting the chimney or something. How do you get that off? How do you get it off without voiding the warranty with a product? Our product is the only product warrantied by Sherwin Williams on a global specification to remove any types of those markings. The only other product is water. If you can't get it off with water, you get it off with us.

Karen Edwards: So be careful, if you're installing and you have one of those, oops, you could potentially void the warranty if you're not using Watts.

Paul Watts: Correct. Correct. If you're taking a xylene or a lacquer thinner or an MEK or some type of really, really hot solvent, that hot solvent will damage that finish. Watts Removal Products has been tested and approved not to damage the sheen, not to go into the paint and bring the underlayment out of it and strip it. It's not a paint stripper. It's very, very delicate. People always ask me, "Well, how can I tell the difference between the over spray paint and the paint that's on the roof?" Right?

Karen Edwards: Good question. Yeah.

Paul Watts: Yeah, it's a great question. It really just comes down to chemistry. People say that our products work like magic, but it's really chemistry out there. We don't want to use anything abrasive, no steel brush, no wire brush. We can literally, if we have over spray on a roof, put our product on with a paintbrush and then just wipe it off.

Karen Edwards: Wow. You said you're a contractor yourself?

Paul Watts: I'm a contractor. I'm a painting contractor myself. I'm a journeyman painting contractor, have been for 25 years. That's my background. We've been in the field, we're blue collar guys. My people are out in the field all the time doing work. We're painters, we're maintenance guys, we're builders out there. We know the trades, we know these problems that occur. We're not sitting in a lab making up problems. We actually know what's happening on site.

Even some of these home remodelers and builders, they'll come to us and say, "Look, I have purple plumbers’ primer," you know that they go put on in the bathrooms. But, they got a nice white ceramic tile floor that they just installed that has white grout in it, and they spill a can of purple primer on there. How do you get that off? It really evolved out of roofing into any other type of mark or any other type of surface that we can help clean, because we want to support the contractors in every facet of this remodel, majority of the roof, because that's what we specialize in. But there's going to be other oops on other parts of the project too.

Karen Edwards: Right, and it's going to work there. So we didn't talk about this ahead of time, but did you develop this product just-

Paul Watts: No, I'm not a chemist. I'm not that smart.

Karen Edwards: Okay. But you worked with one to have it made.

Paul Watts: We worked with one, yes. We worked with one and had it made. The product has a 30 year history though from Australia.

Karen Edwards: Oh, okay. Tell me about that.

Paul Watts: It comes from Australia and Australia had a really, really bad graffiti problem years and years ago, and met a gentleman from Australia in my travels, and I was starting a graffiti removal business. We just kind of linked up and basically was able to purchase the recipe from him and do a little tweaks to it to make sure that it complies with all Sherwin-Williams standards.

Karen Edwards: Wow. That's an incredible, incredible project.

Paul Watts: It has a great history. It's not something that's new. It's newish to the industry. A lot of people say, "Okay, where has this been all my life? Why haven't I heard about it?" Well, it's come down to marketing and branding. It was in more of the paint stripping world out there, but we were able to work with chemistry and work with chemists to get it down so it doesn't damage any paint, like on the Sherwin-Williams roofs or the Vic West of the world when they're installing those really cool tiles on those roofs, which have Sherwin-Williams paint on them. Those tiles sometimes have little grooves in them, and they'll get bio growth in them, and they'll get maybe some algae or something on them over the years. Well, our products are not only meant for the oops, but they're meant for the maintenance. Those roofs, you want to keep clean and you want to protect your investment.

Karen Edwards: You just led right into my next question. I was going to say, the metal roofs are just gaining such popularity. The market share is just growing. While they're known for being low maintenance, sometimes they are going to need maintenance. I was just going to ask, are the products really a good fit for cleaning and maintaining metal roofs? And, I think you answered that.

Paul Watts: Absolutely, absolutely. There is specifications on keeping your metal roof clean. I couldn't cite them off the top of my head right now. Mark McDonald could probably do that, but you want to keep them clean and Watts Removal Products is meant for a general cleaner, maybe two times a year. You get out there and you want to clean your roofs. I just had a homeowners association in Florida call me about 38 or 40 homes in their homeowners association in Florida, and they have some palm trees and some other trees around, but you're starting to see the growth on this metal roof out there. And they're like, "What do we do? How do we clean them?" You can clean them with Watts without voiding any of those warranties.

Karen Edwards: Wow.

Paul Watts: And there's really no other company out there. Sherwin-Williams was on the cutting edge of this and recognized the value in it. They're the only ones on the market that offer this. We have aligned ourselves with Sherwin Williams to offer this to all their customers.

Karen Edwards: You mentioned it earlier about all the testing and the R&D. What does it take to pass Sherwin Williams testing?

Paul Watts: Oh my gosh, it's tough. I remember going to the lab with Mark McDonald because they were testing it as I went there, and 2,500 worth hours’ worth of testing. They have that test fence in Florida, all the panels out there. They even pulled some panels off the test fence that are 20 years old to see if it took off the paint, which it did not. But it also cleans, if there's any type of chalking or any type of growth or something it'll clean that. But it is a very rigorous process.

I remember walking in there with a lab coat into the R&D department and with my cowboy boots on and my hat saying, "Hey, I'm going to show you guys something." I don't think they really believed me until I just took an oil based spray can. The biggest seller was taking Mark's, which I don't know if he has told his boss yet this or not, but taking Mark's car and I rattle canned his whole car, his whole hood of his car with oil-based spray can and let it sit for six hours, seven hours before we took it off. I had to make a believer out of him.

Karen Edwards: I'm going to say, wow.

Paul Watts: And make a believer out of them.

Karen Edwards: I heard that story somewhere before, but I would be very nervous letting somebody spray paint the hood of my car and let it sit.

Paul Watts: Mark was very nervous, Mark was very nervous, but he was a believer after that.

Karen Edwards: Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. How do contractors bring your products into their business? Maybe they're already doing roof maintenance, or maybe they want to start, or maybe they're adding metal to their product portfolio. Where do they find you?

Paul Watts: They find us at wattsremoval.com and they can find us there. Sherwin-Williams has decided, which is really, really smart of them, it's like their expertise is paint. Their expertise is not Watts Removal. They've allowed me, which is great, to actually educate and train their customers on how Watts Removals work. They don't want to be the expert in that. They just want to filter their customers to me. I'm always on the road training OEMs, training contractors, having lunch and learn, maybe some Zooms. As we train contractors, contractors ourselves, we think, because I am one, so I'm going to say this, we think we've seen and done everything that there is in the market. Right? But there's always new things coming out, like our can of Clean Sweep that we have in our metal maintenance kit, nobody reads this anymore.

Karen Edwards: The back of the can, right?

Paul Watts: Yeah. It's a lot to read the back of this. Every product that we've made has a QR code on it. It goes directly to a video so the contractors can just watch how it's done.

Karen Edwards: Great.

Paul Watts: And then my number is my direct cell. I'm the only one giving technical advice in the field. Shooting me pictures. We really want to set the contractors up for success. Everybody comes out and says, "Hey, I got the greatest, latest new innovation out there." But we really stand behind that. Our biggest compliment is that we want to make the contractors the hero of their own story. I don't need the credit. I just want that contractor to get more work and be able to use Watts product in an efficient way that doesn't damage the surface that he is working on. I don't care if it's a metal roof all the way to Concrete and stone and Masonry or to any type of plastic or vinyl or something in the field that he has a problem with. Let's set him up for success.

Karen Edwards: Okay, so tell me how it works. I spray some Clean Sweep on. Do I have to let it sit? Is it immediate?

Paul Watts: Yep. We have some couple of different applications. Clean Sweep is for over spray, strippable film. Sometimes we get contractors that leave the strippable film out a little bit too long on site.

Karen Edwards: Oh, yeah.

Paul Watts: Oh, yeah. The over spray is really, really easy. You can put it in a pump spray or you can use it with a trigger or a bucket and a brush. Again, it's all on video. You just spray it on, agitate it maybe lightly with a soft bristle brush or a microfiber towel. Again, not to damage the surface and then just wipe it off or rinse it off with a hose. No dwell time at all. Don't let it dwell.

Now, the strippable film, depending on if it's the adhesive on the back or if it's the actual plastic itself on there, there's a couple different methods. Put the product on, let it sit for a while, especially on the adhesive. You can work it with a small little brush. And then we like to say get a corner of it and you can start peeling it off. A lot of the older strippable out there, if it's left out there for maybe six months or a year, which we've had this problem, it starts to eggshell. If you know what I mean, when you pick a piece, it's like a little piece.

Karen Edwards: It breaks off. Right.

Paul Watts: Yeah, exactly. That's a great scenario for us because our products will get in those little nooks and crannies and get in that crack, and then it'll loosen up that adhesive and you'll be able to either rinse it off or lightly take a damp towel or something and pull that off. In our videos, you'll see us pressure washing. Anytime I tell somebody to pressure wash a strippable film out, that doesn't mean with a zero degree tip, and you're getting right down on that metal. Right? We don't really want to pressure wash that if we can avoid it but the product has an adhesive remover quality to it, so it'll loosen up that adhesive and you can take it off.

It's unfortunate sometimes the panels are already installed and then they're trying to take off the strippable or their adhesive when it's installed. And the adhesive is, you can't see sometimes like on a black mat, you can't see it. We had a property here in Portland. They put up all the black mat panels and it was Sherwin-Williams, and then probably four or five months with all the construction dust, it just acts like Velcro. All that dust and everything sticks to that adhesive, so you see all these patches of just dirt and grime and the trees that are pollinating and everything else out there. So again, Clean Sweep will remove all that. It's not a silver bullet for everything.

There are some things like if you have rusting coming up from some type of panel or something that's been out there, it's not going to fix that. It'll fix some light rust. Sometimes you'll get a contractor out there cutting, which obviously shouldn't be, cutting the metal roof and the shavings go onto below it. The sooner we can get that, the better, because those little metal shavings will rust, you'll see these little rust dots out there. But you got to get those metal shavings out if you want them to stop rusting.

There's a couple of different applications. Just call me. Email me, call me. I'm always on my phone answering questions. If the product's not working for you, there's a reason why. Either it's not being applied properly and done properly, or maybe something that you're using on wasn't really meant for that purpose. But we're always up for a challenge. We always love to solve problems. I always have new ones coming to me every single day. There's going to be stuff I'm going to run across that I'm going to just throw my hands up and say, "I don't know. Give it a shot, give it a try. See what happens." But we will stand behind everything on that.

Karen Edwards: All right. Now, Watts Removal Products is an important part of the Sherwin-Williams MetalVue program. How do you fit together with that?

Paul Watts: Well, we really kind of tie it all together. You have the training, and you have the application, and you have the metal itself, and you have the dealer portals at Grosso University and things like that. We want to make sure that when those metal roofs are going on, that those metal roofs look the way they should with making sure that they look 100% clean and installed and where that homeowner's going to sign off on that check and give that contractor that last check. We really tie it into those oops. Something's going to happen. We all like to think contractors, that our guys are going to install the roof properly, there's not going to be any boot marks, scuff marks, there's not going to be any over spray. Sometimes we get chalk lines on the roofs. We can remove those too. But we really want to kind of bring MetalVue and tie us into MetalVue as your checklist or your-

Karen Edwards: Finishing touch?

Paul Watts: Yeah, on that roof. Right?

Karen Edwards: Yeah.

Paul Watts: We had a metal contractor put in, I think 64 feet or 70 feet of linear copper around the house and down spouts, but he didn't use gloves.

Karen Edwards: Oh, fingerprints.

Paul Watts: Fingerprints. The homeowner was holding up a $60,000 check.

Karen Edwards: Wow.

Paul Watts: He's like, "Clean it or replace it." So with a little bit of elbow grease and Watts Removal Products and Clean Sweep, he was able to do a test spot for the homeowner on the down spout to get some of those oily marks out. The homeowner is like, "If you can do that on the whole project, I'll write you a check."

Karen Edwards: Nice.

Paul Watts: It's really getting you sometimes out of a bind. Look, every contractor's not going to use it, but when you need it, you need it yesterday.

Karen Edwards: Right. Yeah. Well, this is great. The MetalVue program, if you don't know, is part of Metal Coffee Shop and it's Sherwin-Williams brain child that really gives a contractor everything they need from start to finish to be successful in metal. So yeah, it's great that you're a part of it. I love the story of finishing it off and helping them get paid. So this is great. Wow. Paul, I want to thank you for being here today and sharing all this information. If you're listening to this podcast right now, Paul has [inaudible 00:21:10] for you, should you want it. He's got some hats that he's wanting to give away. All you need to do is go to Watts Removal Products website, fill out the form and say, "Hey, I heard this podcast on Metal Coffee Shop. Please send me a hat." Give them your name and contact information, and Paul will get you a hat.

Paul Watts: And it's right on our contact page. So you can just go to the contact page and do that and I'll be at IRE this year, so we'll have a couple setups at IRE. Sherman-Williams is building a big old wall with metal on it that people can come and tag and write their name on it.

Karen Edwards: Oh, that is going to be great.

Paul Watts: We're going to be doing five removals there.

Karen Edwards: So, the International Roofing Expo is February 6th through 8th. It's in Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Convention Center. And you'll be part of Sherwin Williams booth, is that correct?

Paul Watts: Yes, correct. I'll be in Sherwin-Williams' booth and the MetalVue booth also.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. I'm going to come by and see those products in action because they sound simply amazing. Very nice.

Paul Watts: Yeah. I'll be down. Okay, good.

Karen Edwards: All right, well thank you everybody for listening and watching this Metal Cast. Please visit Watts Removal Products directory on Metal Coffee Shop as well as MetalVue's directory to learn more about that. And be sure to subscribe to Metal Cast on your favorite podcast platform. Set those notifications so that you don't miss a single episode, and we'll see you next time on Metal Cast.