When specifying aluminium sliding doors, longevity and durability are both factors to consider. With sustainability now a huge focus in building, it is imperative that your invest in our slim sliding doors will last a lifetime.
When working in different climates, it is important to understand what corrosion class you fall into. This will allow for the correct preparation of the sliding doors to ensure that they can withstand and polluted areas.
Understanding corrosion and corrosion classes.
Corrosion classes are a very simple system that separates various environments into what corrosion impact they have on materials such as aluminium.
The categories range from C1 to Cx (Very Low to Extreme), this system allows for environment such as schools, offices and industrial plants to be separated and easy identifiable when planning.
The categories are:
C1 – Very Low (Heated Rooms, Schools, Offices)
C2- Low (Unheated Rooms, Storage Rooms, Sports Halls)
C3 – Middle (Food Processing, Breweries, Lightly Polluted Urban Areas)
C4 – High (Swimming Pools, Heavily Polluted Urban Areas, Coastal Areas without Salt Water Spray)
C5 – Very High (Mining Areas, Coastal Areas With Salt Water)
Cx – Extreme (Extremely High Corrosive Atmospheres)
Durable aluminium frame finishes for minimal windows.
With these classes in mind, the minimal windows system adheres to the C3 category as standard. This is due to the natural resistance properties that aluminium possesses. For areas that fall under the C5 class, we can provide a specialist marine grade finish which will fully protect the aluminium finish from heavy exposure to salt water.
A property is in a marine environment if it is five miles from the coast. Because of the high levels of moisture and alkalinity in the air, as well as the salt deposits brought in by sweeping breezes from the sea, these places are particularly vulnerable to glazing incidents.
If the appropriate systems are not specified, all of these factors could potentially damage the glass and its framing profiles. For this reason, marine grade polyester
powder coating (PPC), which needs to be at least 50 microns thick, should be applied to all glass frames.
You can read more regarding marine grade finishes here!
