Challenges In Refurbishing Metal Cladding

  • Rotrex building before Cladding Coatings' restoration
  • Rotrex building after Cladding Coatings' restoration

Cladding Coatings refurbish the exterior roof and wall cladding of commercial and industrial properties throughout the UK. For over a decade the company have worked on a wide variety of projects and experienced many challenges along the way.

Here’s a few thoughts from Managing Director, Mike Hallwood on working on building refurbishment projects.

What are the biggest challenges faced when refurbishing metal cladding?

Tatty metal cladding, the kind that Cladding Coatings are experts at refurbishing

One of the biggest challenges for us is the weather. Temperature changes, freezing conditions and blazing sun combined with wind and rain creates a cocktail of problems for our teams. This affects the systems we choose to use, health and safety and planning in projects throughout the year. Therefore, it’s important to book your project in as early as possible so it can be scheduled in at the optimum time.

Health and safety can pose many challenges, keeping our teams and the public safe is our number one priority. We find work on roofs especially hazardous, particularly when working with roof lights.

Another challenge is spraying paint, with the risk of over spraying adjacent properties or vehicles, we need to consider how we work around this on every project.

What is the most common problem your clients face with the condition of their external cladding?

Summed up in one word I’d say appearance. Properties do not look good when they have faded, or dirty cladding and old-fashioned colour schemes can make a building look old. Peeling and corroding cladding not only look unsightly, but they can start to cause real problems to the integrity of the building envelope.



At what point should the cladding be refurbished?

This depends on the client, for example, with a retail customer this might be as soon as your cladding starts to look like a bad representation of your brand. For customer facing clients, appearance can affect footfall.

Sometimes a building use may change which would prompt a colour change. Such as flats becoming offices or warehouses becoming real ale pubs.

Cladding is refurbished for both aesthetic and maintenance reasons or to ensure the upkeep of the metal itself. If you see plastisol is delaminating, then I would say that was a good time to refurbish cladding even before you see any rust. Once you see rust this could create holes and then you may have leaks or need to replace the cladding which is more expensive.

  • Pizza Oven building before Cladding Coatings' restoration
  • Pizza Oven building after Cladding Coatings' restoration

When looking to refurbish the external roof or wall cladding, what is the biggest challenge for the building owner?

Selecting the right system can be very difficult for building owners. Obviously, every manufacturer advises their product is the best and the budgets can vary massively from as little as £30 per 5ltr to £700 per 20ltr. There is a lot of choice, and it is difficult to establish where the value is in each system.

Understanding warranties can be an issue too, even for an experienced cladding refurbishment expert like myself. Some are product only and some roof coating warranties do not include to waterproof function, and it is a specialist industry.

We are approved contractors for all the main manufacturers and have been working in this specific niche industry for 14 years completing on average 50-100 jobs a year. So well in excess of 1000 projects all over the country using different systems and colour schemes.

So, if you’re unsure and need some advice just get in touch. Its unlikely you have an issue we haven’t already come across before, but if you do then that’s a challenge we relish.

Contact us for a free site visit and no obligation quotation. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,
call 0161 626 3493 or visit www.claddingcoatings.co.uk.

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Challenges In Refurbishing Metal Cladding