For most buildings, the exterior is designed to be its most important eye-catching feature. While we’re wired to be extra mindful of the cleanliness and maintenance of the interior of our homes and offices, we sometimes neglect to remember to give the outside of our buildings the proper care. One of the biggest advantages of prepainted metal is its easy maintenance, but there are a few easy steps to make your metal panels shine bright.
Rinse the surface with water.
This sounds like a no-brainer, but this is one of the easiest ways to clean coated metal panels. Dirt and debris built up over time can affect the quality of the panel’s appearance and potentially reduce the lifetime of the coating. Simply rinsing the surface with a garden hose or pressure spray system will clean most buildups on a coating surface, allowing the panels to look brand new.
Clean with soap or water for difficult areas.
This is the first in a series of posts under the general heading, “Whatever Happened to … ?” The idea is to revisit issues and opportunities of the past and help bring you up to date on what has been accomplished and what is still yet to be done. So … whatever happened to acid rain?
A while back, I wrote about the “just right” conditions necessary for the formation of fog. That particular post discussed the scattering of light, which is done by materials such as titanium dioxide (the principal pigment in white paint) and clouds (where water droplets do the scattering). The birds are chirping at sunrise and the vernal equinox has already passed, which means the sun is finally in the Northern Hemisphere and the days are getting longer and warmer—and all of this points to the beginning of another building season. That got me to thinking about a few other “just right” conditions that seem pertinent for this time of year. And, once again, water comes into play. 
You may think that that standards development in ASTM is a slow process—as it tends to be in most associations with volunteers. You may think ASTM-ers talk endlessly about the stickiness of tape or the problem with the precision of the pencil hardness test. Yes, there is plenty of that. There is also the development of new standards when new technology becomes established.
In the arena of university R&D, one often thinks, who cares? I certainly do. But in this and the next post, you will read about some fascinating work coming out of Stanford University. As a self-professed cynic, I would never mention “the next great thing” if I did not see some very real potential. There is, of course, a big valley between R&D and commercial reality, but from what I have heard and read … well, you be the judge.
Scattering sunshine metaphorically is a great idea. The stress of the workplace places great burdens on people and spreading a little sunshine is a simple way to create a more positive environment. But scattering sunshine also has a far less romantic side to it.
As a Part Two blog on accelerated corrosion testing, here is a sampling of work done by the French Corrosion Institute, an organization that has done a great deal of work in the past with the European Coil Coating Association. The bullet points following the titles and attributions are my own comments from reading the documents: 
Architects and building owners continue to expand the use prepainted metal for its long-term durability, specifically its excellent chalk, fade, and adhesion performance. The use of Insulated Metal Panels (IMPs) is also on the rise in a variety of roof and wall applications due to its sustainability and versatility. Combining the two, prepainted IMPs provide superior energy efficiency and durability, both of which are necessary in today’s competitive marketplace to comply with ever-evolving building codes and customer expectations.
COAT NOTES 