Eco-Friendly Coloring For Attractive Metal Fences And Railings
Durable and strong, metals like steel and aluminum are popular materials for fencing and railings. But while some people may prefer the natural metal finish, it's too industrial-looking for most residential designs. Instead, home fences and railings on porches and decks are usually painted to match the overall color scheme of a house.
Ordinary solvent painting, however, is not the only option for coloring these metals. If you care about the environment, you'll want to get the coloring on your fencing or railing done by powder coating, not traditional liquid paint. Just how eco-friendly is powder coating?
Reduced Chemical Pollution
Ordinary liquid paint involves suspending the pigment within a solvent chemical. This solvent is what makes the paint a liquid and allows the pigment to be applied to a surface. As paint dries, what you smell is that solvent being released into the air. This leaves behind a coating of pigment as dry paint; unfortunately, it leaves solvent chemicals like acetone or formaldehyde in the air.
Powder coating works differently. It's a completely dry method of "painting" a pigment onto metals such as steel or aluminum. The metal is electrostatically charged and the powder is blown onto it, clinging to the surface of the metal. This coating of powder is then heated and baked on, causing it to adhere to the metal as a smooth outer shell. No chemical solvents are needed.
Low Waste
When powder coating is blown onto a metal surface, there will always be some "overspray" or excess powder. Spray painting has a similar issue. However, overspray from regular spray painting must be cleaned up, often with more chemical solvents.
Powder overspray is a whole different matter. Since it doesn't dry like liquid paint, the powder is often simply collected and re-used later at the same facility. If a facility is not set up to re-use powders, it can be recycled instead.
Recyclable
One of the advantages of metal, and aluminum in particular, is its ability to be recycled. You might end up keeping your metal fence or railing for your entire life; however, if you don't, one concern you may have over powder coating is whether it will affect the recyclable nature of your fencing or railing.
It's true that metal has to be stripped of its powder coating before being recycled; however, this is not a difficult task. Just as heat is used to bake the powder coating on, extreme heat can be used to melt it back off, leaving the bare metal ready to be recycled.
Tri-State Fabricators and other locations can answer more questions that you may encounter when considering powder coating.
Share