Month: June 2022

The design principles behind commercial roof coating products includes easy user application, adhesion, durability, water and UV resistance. However, gutter paint requires some extra factors. Along with being waterproof, this type of product must be highly flexible.

What makes a good paint for guttering?

In today’s working environment, contractors need products to be robust and user friendly. With limited hours allocated to roof or gutter repairs or maintenance, it’s crucial that coatings are designed with fast adhesion in mind. But equally it is essential that gutter paints are waterproof and highly resilient to both UV damage, extreme temperatures and clogging.

Along with pooling water, coatings need to be tough enough to withstand a variety of debris. Mosses, grasses and weeds, nesting birds, and rubbish can all collect in guttering systems causing significant damage over time.

Below are three common issues:

• Pooling water backs up, causing damage to the gutter and surrounding building.
• Where the gutter system has an inadequate fall, over time this could cause the substrate to fail.
• Corrosion (oxidisation) can occur when there’s slow drainage.

Regular gutter maintenance is the key to preventing clogging. Instead of replacing an entire gutter system, a simple solution is to coat with a waterproof gutter paint. So, how are gutter coatings developed and how do they differ from a standard roof coating paint?

Developing a waterproof gutter paint

Although coatings for gutter systems use the same technology as other roof coatings, they have a different resin profile. Gutter paint has a more rubberised coating to cope with prolonged damp and wet conditions. Industrial gutters are designed differently to domestic guttering systems with no fall. Water collects until it reaches a certain height, and it then runs over to the drain. As a result, this type of gutter can be immersed in water for days at a time.

Technologists spend a lot of time in wintry conditions, testing the profile of gutter coatings. They test various substrates including concrete and metal-lined gutters, which are the most common substrates used for guttering systems on industrial buildings. It’s not unusual for testing to include breaking the ice to see how freezing conditions have affected a gutter. As ice creates pressure as it expands, a flexible, robust rubberised gutter paint is essential.

The technicians we use to develop our products are continually testing and improving our Giromax® Guttercoat. We listen carefully to the feedback of the contractors who use our products, which provides us with the foundation for future design parameters. Our aim is to ensure our products can be easily applied during cold, damp conditions.

Our focus is always on how we can improve the application, environmental aspects and affordability. This includes using certain polymers in our gutter coating to provide greater flexibility, UV resistance and adhesion. Read more about How We Test Our Coating Products…

5 Benefits of Giromax® Guttercoat

Our advanced gutter coating solution is ideal as an anti-corrosion treatment for galvanised steel and cast-iron gutters. It can also be used on asbestos cement gutters. Designed to offer long-term protection, our product can be used to repair tired gutters and joints.

Below are five benefits of using Giromax® Guttercoat:

1. 1. A one-part, fully moisture tolerant hybrid polymer, which is supplied ready to use.
   2. Seals and encapsulates the substrate even in wet and damp conditions.
   3. A Gutter Joint treatment is included.
   4. Resistance to ponding water.
   5. Resilience to bird damage.

Giromax® Guttercoat comes with a 15-year guarantee, giving you or your client peace of mind for years to come. When it comes to industrial roof and gutter coatings, we are the market leaders. Our aim is to ensure contractors have a user-friendly, robust solution for industrial roof or gutter systems.

If you need application guidance or advice about any of our products, please speak to the Giromax team or call 01455 558969 today.

As with most products, Roofcoat systems were developed to solve a problem. Technicians are leading cladding experts, many of whom have been developing coatings for warranty work since the days of British Steel. Originally, silicone was used in the products developed to help to deal with the problem British Steel had with cut-edge corrosion. But due to the various issues surrounding silicone, developments were made to roof coatings to cope with the movement of metal roof sheets and the Giromax® Roofcoating system was born.

Environmental factors for roof coatings

Since the beginning, developing roof-coating products that are less harmful to our environment has always been a key factor in the design process. Our solvent-less products have been developed to compete in a highly competitive marketplace. Giromax® roof coatings have been designed to release fewer polluting Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) into the environment.

The products have been designed to include less leachable content, allowing the rain to run off roof systems with materials staying within the coatings. We also use more environmentally friendly stabilisers in our coatings, which minimises health and safety concerns for the product and the user.

Our coatings have low heavy metal content and low isocyanates, often used in 2-pack PU coating products, which can affect the health of workers if exposed. When compared with other roof-coating products on the market, our coatings contain 87% paint compared to the solid content of a silicone-based paint which averages 60%. The majority of our products contain less solvents than our competitor products.

Better adhesion

When products are developed, one of our main focuses is on adhesion. High levels of flexibility are built into our roof-coating systems to cope with different weather conditions and temperatures. Roof systems are exposed to greater windchill and lower temperatures than at ground level, and they need to be resilient to sun, storms, snow and ice.

Some roofing systems also require regular maintenance, including access to vents and air conditioning units, so footfall has to be taken into consideration. Our products have been designed to be highly durable, tolerant and able to withstand years of wear and tear.

Better UV Resistance

As well as exposure to sun and dry conditions, the impact of hot sunshine on a rain-soaked roof can create a very aggressive environment requiring specific paint technology. Our coatings have been developed to include a waterproof membrane to minimise surface degradation and colour fading technology.

Better user application

One of the challenges in today’s working environment is the need for products to be as user friendly as possible. Roof-coating jobs can easily be disrupted due to weather conditions. One of the key design principles has always focused on the ability to apply our roof coatings in damp conditions. Due to climate change, the British weather is becoming increasingly volatile, and we are aware of the growing challenge this poses to roof contractors.

Fewer days for workers to be able to apply a roof-coating product leads to jobs taking longer and time equals money. As our roof-coatings can be applied in wet weather, this solves the problem of wasted time and costs. But as the British weather has always been changeable, technicians have spent decades developing roof coatings to withstand extreme conditions.

18 months of product testing

It’s important that we have full confidence in our products before launching into the market. When new and improved coatings are developed for better adhesion, better flexibility and better UV resistance, they are rigorously tested for 18 months. This includes a continuous test cycle of 2,000 – 3,000 hours. After which tests continue for 15,000 hours or more to ensure we have achieved maximum durability for the product.

ASTM approved QUV accelerated weather testing cabinet are used and different thicknesses of films are also tested to see how they react to varying conditions. Read more about our testing process…

When it comes to developing roof coating products, we are the market leaders. Our technical expertise allows us to continually test and improve our product range. Our aim is to provide contractors with flexible, durable and long-lasting commercial roof coating solutions.

If you need application guidance or advice about any of our products, please speak to the Giromax team or call 01455 558969 today.