In Brazil there is a tendency to avoid the application of paints based on coal tar a product which has been banned in some countries due to the risk posed to human health. With the aim of replacing them in the corrosion protection of carbon steel structure of electrical transformers underground chambers were selected and evaluated four paints one of them is similar to the currently applied but free from coal tar and other are presented as high performance corrosion protection and have low levels of volatile organic compounds ( VOC). To evaluate these in comparison with the current were carried out a series of performance tests some of them considering the conditions of exposure that the transformers are subject in the chambers. In addition anodes were evaluated to study the application of galvanic cathodic protection in areas of metal exposure (defects in the coating). This paper presents the paints studied and the results obtained in performance tests