Marine Coating System Calculator

Real formulation sheets often round each component to the nearest tenth of a percent, so the raw entries can sum to something like 98% or 101.5% instead of exactly 100%. The calculator scales every percentage by the same factor (100 divided by the actual sum) before computing weights, so a slightly-off formulation sheet still produces batch weights that add up cleanly to the target batch size.

EPA Method 24 and most US regulatory filings report VOC content in grams per liter, while many US coatings data sheets and some state filings still use pounds per gallon. The calculator computes g/L directly from solvent weight and water-adjusted volume, then converts to lb/gal using the standard 0.008345 factor, so you can match whichever unit your compliance paperwork requires without doing the conversion by hand.

No. The calculator only checks your VOC result against the EPA's 450 g/L industrial maintenance coating limit. SCAQMD rules in Southern California cap VOC much lower, typically 100–250 g/L depending on coating category, and the EU's Directive 2004/42/EC has its own separate limits by product type. A pass here only tells you about the EPA industrial maintenance threshold — you still need to check the specific limit for wherever the coating will actually be sold or applied.

EPA Method 24 excludes certain solvents (acetone and specific HFCs, for example) from the VOC calculation because regulators don't count them as smog-forming volatiles. This calculator treats every gram of the solvent fraction you enter as a counted VOC, with no exempt-solvent carve-out, so if your formulation uses any exempt solvent the true regulatory VOC will actually be lower than what this tool reports.