Question How would you do it?

[DL Signs]

Got a request from a company who wants to cover the side of a building, new thing for us. It's 400 feet long, 4 stories tall, and they want to cover the entire back side of the building overlooking an artsy-fartsy part of town with some modern artwork. Haven't gone to look at it yet (150 miles each way), but they said it probably wouldn't be suitable for vinyl, and don't want it painted on, so that doesn't leave a lot of options. Would you do printed panels (ACM or the like) and attach? Another thought was having a banner done by one of the building/ scaffold wrap companies, but not sure of the longevity of those, or if they'll handle winters here in Wisco. Is anyone familiar with them, work with any companies that do them, know how durable they are? Any other suggestions or bright ideas on how you'd do something like that?

Not sure if we're even going to take it on yet, will decide that when we go look at it, might be out of our wheelhouse.

 

[Boudica]

my first thought was paint... but if that a no-go, then yah - some paneled material like coro or ACM.
OR - this could be an ideal situation for alumagraphic.

 

[gnubler]

Building banner(s). I went through this when I was quoting signage for an aircraft hangar door. I got a quote from a wholesaler who recommended installing it with Keder rails.
Look online and Youtube vids of some being installed, there's some massive ones!

I'm sure others here will have better advice or ideas.

 

[JBurton]

I'd say any wall banner you can get at that size will definitely hold up to the winter weather, but I can't imagine the herculean effort that it takes to assemble 400'x50' banner, let alone how to keep it taut as you install it. Paneled ACM could work, but that's a lot of holes, plus all the seams. Alumagraphic, sheeeeeet, whatever salesman handles that at the distributor level will start showing up a good deal more often!
Have you tried talking them into a projector? Or ideally, a whole Daktronics wall, but now you're talking 1-2MWh...
This is more than a tough cookie, it's a scone or like a biscotti or something.

 

[victor bogdanov]

First thing I do for something like this is ask their budget to make sure no one wastes their time. Sometimes customers might have 5k-10k in mind for something like this which will probably be 50k+ easy. Get the budget out of the way so that you do not waste time quoting a 100k job when the customers budget is 10k

 

[ColorCrest]

Jokers to the left, video to the right, stuck in the middle with grand format tension mesh.

 

[DL Signs]

Boss is going down there this weekend to do a survey & get the budget. We've done some work on other buildings in the area this is, and they're not tightwads, but there will be a limit.

I know what Daktronics cost, I'm pretty confident that'll be out, but I also can't imagine our installers trying to line up 20,000sf of acm panels

There are companies that make banners big enough, like this one, I just don't have any knowledge of how good they are, how long they last, but they would probably be the quickest, most economical. I started doing a little research into building wrap banners like these, they're a mesh material, so I wouldn't think they would trap moisture behind them, a lot seem to use steel cables to mount & tighten them. They also want this to be up longer term.

Would love it if anyone here has some knowledge, or worked with anything big like this to say if the banner systems are suitable, or to stay away.

 

[DL Signs]

my first thought was paint... but if that a no-go, then yah - some paneled material like coro or ACM.
OR - this could be an ideal situation for alumagraphic.

Alumigrahic only has a 1yr lifespan. Plus, for some strange reason they seem to be ok with holes in the building, but not painting, or applying adhesive vinyl

 

[Boudica]

Alumigrahic only has a 1yr lifespan. Plus, for some strange reason they seem to be ok with holes in the building, but not painting, or applying adhesive vinyl

I wasn't aware of that lifespan. We have a graphic up on our building that's been there for several years and it still looks great. It's South facing, and gets a lot of weather.