Seal-Once™ in the News: Press Releases and Media
Contact: Henry R. Croteau, President
Phone: 603-669-8786
Fax: 603-669-9048
products@seal-once.com
Manchester Union Leader, N.H. – July 3, 2006 – Benjamin Kepple, UL Staff
Reprinted with permission
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Waterproofer makers feel they’re on to something big.
Eco-friendly product: Seal-Once penetrates wood and masonry and is touted as not being harmful to plants, pets or fish.
ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY, long lasting and cost effective, Seal-Once is going to transform the market for wood and concrete waterproofers, according to Henry R. “Hank” Croteau, president of New Image Coatings in Manchester.
“This is not a coating, or a sealer, this is a true waterproofer, and it penetrates,” Croteau said in a recent interview. “Technically, you could build a house and put this on all your cedar shakes or all your clapboards and then paint or stain on top of that,” Croteau said.
“We can accept any type of coating on top of this because we’re not a surface coat. What we’re strictly trying to do here is prevent water ingress, we’re preventing water from getting inside masonry or wood, so it doesn’t split, crack, mold, mildew and that type of thing.”
While many competing products bill themselves as waterproofers, they are typically solvent or petroleum-distillate based, making them unsuitable around water and potentially toxic.
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Seal-Once, a water-based sealer whose active agent is a proprietary polymer, has been demonstrated to be non-toxic when used within label conditions.
New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services Limnology Center Director Jody C onnor reviewed tests carried out by Denton, Texas-based Huther Associates on Dyneseal/ Perma-Seal, the waterproofing agent in Seal-Once.
“These toxicity tests showed that this product is pretty safe,” Connor said. “Used within the label conditions, there are no constituents in the product at levels of concern or levels that would impactwater quality,” Connor wrote in a letter to Croteau.
Connor said the letter was not an endorsement. “Any product that comes into the state that may enter a water body, we have to examine that material,” he said.
“We want to make sure that if this product gets into the water, that it’s not going to cause any fish kill for any biological critters living near the shore, reptiles or any invertebrates,” he said.
Despite his finding that wood treated with Seal-Once can be used safely around the state’s waters, Connor said DES won’t allow the liquid product to be put directly into the water.
“They can’t spray it into waters,” he said. “If you have removable docks, you should treat them in the fall when they are out of the water,” Connor said. “If you have permanent docks, you probably should rent or purchase tarps and have someone hold the tarp while you are painting over the water.”
On the market for two months, Seal-Once has found ready acceptance from retailers and distributors, New Image Coatings vice president of operations David D. Myler said.
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“Every hardware store wants it, every concrete and masonry store we’ve been to thus far wants it, because they don’t have an eco-friendly, non-toxic product to offer,” Myler said.
Portland, Maine-based hardware distributor Emery-Waterhouse is offering Seal-Once on a drop-ship basis, which means a customer can purchase it through Emery-Waterhouse but the distributor doesn’t yet warehouse it.
Negotiations are under way to add Seal-Once as a regularly warehoused item, said Lynn Sewell, associate merchandise manager for Emery-Waterhouse.
Emery-Waterhouse supplies retailers throughout the Northeast.
Myler said Canadian paint manufacturer and distributor Sico Inc. is also evaluating whether to sell Seal-Once under private label in Canada.
The product line has already been picked up by Manchester based Corriveau-Routhier. “It’s environmentally friendly,” vice president John Corriveau said. “It’s one of the first products that truly is that when it comes to preserving wood or concrete.”
Among Seal-Once advantages are its longevity, ease of application and lack of the smell associated with most solventbased sealers, he said. Corriveau-Routhier has stores in Manchester, Concord and Nashua.
Belmont flooring, decorating and paint store The Home Beautiful is also carrying Seal-Once. “The people are loving because it looks like you just cut the wood and put it right on the wall; it doesn’t give it that altered color or look to it,” said manager Dan Downing. “We have it out here in the store with all our other deck coatings and so forth,” he said.
“Based on their studies, it’s a very high-end product. To make your mark in this industry, you want to go to the higher-grade products.”
The retail price for a gallon of Seal-Once ranges from about $28 to $38.
“A lot of it depends on the volume that they buy,” Croteau said. “We have obviously price breaks. If a store is buying, let’s say 20 cases, he is going to get the best price so he can sell it at the best price.”
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Although the Seal-Once business is based at 150 Dow St. in Manchester, the firm obtains its waterproofing agent in concentrate from manufacturer Visco Inc. of Lincoln, Neb., under an exclusive marketing agreement.
“They manufacture the concentrate, but we have sole marketing rights internationally for the product,” New Image Coating president Croteau said.
Croteau also owns Seal Pro Inc., which has been in business since 1980, and sells seals for industrial pumps, boilers, hydraulics and gasketing materials, and maintenance products like penetrating oils, silicone sprays and lubricants. Over the past seven or eight years, Seal Pro also has distributed waterproofing materials, coatings and sealants, Croteau said. It was through the industrial coating business that Croteau came to work with Mike Cork, the chemist who invented the water-based polymer waterproofer underlying Seal-Once.
“He presented the product to me because of the relationship we’ve had and the trust we had in each other and wanted me to get involved with it,” Croteau said. “I sat on it for a whole year and did nothing with it and finally he called and said you know you need to do something because we need to move on with the product and I need to find somebody. That was last year, last summer, around August,” he said.
“Seal Pro is just a small regional company covering the New England market, with direct sales reps that call on industry. I’m the sole owner and it was more prudent for me to branch this off into a separate company with a partner like David,” he said.
“I called Dave, a very close friend and someone who I grew up with in Berlin, N.H.,” Croteau said. “Dave was retired and I had him come into the office and meet Mike, because I knew I was in need of some help, and so we interviewed Mike, we made a videotape in my conference room and we saw that we had something that we thought was extremely rare in this industry.”
Once they obtained the letter from the Department of Environmental Services stating that the product was suitable for marine applications, they proceeded to launch the business, putting together literature, can labels and creating a web site.
New Image Coatings recently negotiated a deal with MMH Ventures, a sheltered workshop in Manchester. “We’re providing them some work for their employees, and they’re providing us a very good service and it’s going to a very good cause, so right now we’re using them to fill up all our cans and buckets,” Myler said.
“We provide the concentrate, and they add the water,” Croteau said.
The MMH arrangement allowed New Image Coating to increase Seal-Once production from 150 cans a day to 2,000 cans a day.
“It might be worth noting that we’re talking to an organization in St. Louis that does the same kind of fulfillment and one in Minnesota and one in North Carolina,” Myler said. “We have quotes, and we’re now trying to make decisions.”
While competing clear finish waterproofers need to be reapplied after year or two, Croteau said, “We’re stating years on horizontal and counting and 10 years on verticals and counting on clear.”
Seal-Once can also be tinted brown, red, yellow or gray.
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