A fire broke out in the paint booth at busy Wells Bodywork in Tasmania last Tuesday 4 March.
The fire broke out in the morning after the first cars were painted and the 12 year old Monarch booth was warming up and was swiftly extinguished by the fire department that are situated near the Hobart shop.
The booth was regularly cleaned and serviced and according to owner Mark Wells had been reliable up until then. The fire department and safety inspectors attribute the fire to a crack in the heat exchanger.
The busy shop repairs over 70 cars per week in cramped conditions. The repair volume is the result of the exceptional organisational skills of manager Paul MacPherson. Paint supplier Trade Aid has stepped up to help the shop by lending them its training facility to paint some cars. The shop had just transitioned to waterborne: "The waterborne paint was installed on Friday, it was training on Monday and the fire broke out on Tuesday," Wells said.
Wells Bodyworks will only be able to repair around 20 cars a week for the next three months while new booths are installed. Upbeat Wells said: "You have to find positives in everything you do. We had been planning to modernise and rearrange workflow, now we'll just have to do it sooner."