Cladding Cleaning Cardiff

Why cladding is a soft wash job

Profiled steel cladding is protected by a coating, commonly a plastisol or PVDF finish, and that coating is the whole reason the panel is not rusting. Abrasive methods and high pressure thin it and cut through it, particularly at laps and fixings. Once it has gone the panel chalks, then stains, then corrodes, and the manufacturer warranty will not cover a panel cleaned that way.

So the method is chemistry and dwell time rather than force: the right pH for the coating, applied from the bottom up to avoid clean streaks, given time, then rinsed from the top down at low pressure.

What we clean

• Profiled and box profile steel, including plastisol and PVDF coated panels.
• Composite and insulated panel systems.
• Rendered and painted elevations on commercial units.
• Aluminium curtain walling, fascias and soffit panels.
• Signage and entrance canopies, usually at the same visit.

Access is most of the planning

Very little cladding can be reached from the ground. Most jobs run off a MEWP, and that brings ground conditions, overhead cables, yard traffic and drop zones into the plan. We work this out at the survey rather than on the morning, because a cherry picker that cannot get where it needs to be is a wasted day for both of us.

Streaking, and why it happens

The classic bad cladding clean leaves tiger stripes down the panel. That is almost always either working top down with the product, so it runs and cleans in lines ahead of the operator, or letting the chemistry dry on the panel before it is rinsed. Both are avoidable, and both are why we work bottom up and rinse before anything dries.

Working at height around a live site

Cladding work is almost all from a MEWP, so the constraint is not your opening hours so much as what is underneath the elevation. We need the drop zone clear, which on a working unit usually means an early start, a Sunday, or taking one elevation at a time while the yard uses the others.

Run-off down a full elevation

Washing a two storey elevation puts a lot of water on the ground in a narrow strip at the base of the building, which is usually exactly where the perimeter gullies are. We check whether those run to foul or surface water and bund or divert the base of the working area, because cladding detergent going into a surface water drain is an offence rather than an oversight.

Panel warranties and what we record

If your panels are still in warranty, the manufacturer will have a cleaning specification, and using the wrong pH or too much pressure can void it. We work to that spec where you have it, and record what was used on which elevation so you can show it later. RAMS and insurance details come before we arrive.