Many products that live outdoors are powder coated both to protect and to beautify the article. These powder coated articles can include such diverse products as your window joinery, entrance or garage doors, letter boxes, meter boxes, lawn mowers, plant pots and many other every day items.
Powder coating is one of the most durable colour coatings available and, with very little effort on your part, it will provide you with many years of excellent service. To extend the life of powder coated articles and to comply with warranty requirements for powder coated aluminium joinery, a simple, regular maintenance program should be implemented.
The effects of ultra violet light, atmospheric pollution, dirt, grime and airborne salt deposits can all accumulate over time and should be removed at regular intervals.
As a general rule cleaning should take place every three months. In areas where pollutants are more prevalent, such as beachfront houses and industrial or geothermal areas, then a cleaning program should be carried out on a more frequent basis ie, every one to two months.
Three steps to cleaning your powder coating.
- Carefully remove any loose surface deposits with a wet sponge.
- Use a soft brush (non abrasive) and a dilute solution of a mild detergent, eg, pH-neutral liquid hand dishwashing detergent in warm water (DO NOT use solvents) to remove dust, salt and other deposits.
- Ensure you thoroughly rinse the surfaces with clean fresh water after cleaning to remove all residues.
The 8 golden rules for protecting your window joinery
- Please mask your joinery when building, renovating, plastering or painting.
- If paint splatters or sealants do get on joinery, do not allow to dry, remove immediately.
- DO NOT use turpentine, white spirits, thinner or other aggressive solvents on powder coating (these may be harmful to the extended life of the powder coated surface and should be avoided as the damage may not be visible immediately and may take up to twelve months to appear)
- DO use isopropyl alcohol or Methylated spirits and rinse with warm soapy water.
- DO NOT rub powder coating excessively, especially metallic finishes.
- DO use approved tapes only to mask joinery.
- Use masking tapes in accordance with manufacturer’s instruction.
- Keep sunscreens away from powdercoating, some sunscreens adversely affect painted finishes.
