What a wash-down room does to a panel finish
Wash a room with caustics every day and a painted panel face wears down to the galvanized sheet. Here is how the finishes rank, from standard white to stainless.
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A food plant that washes down every shift is hard on everything in the room, and the wall panels take the most of it. We have seen painted finishes wear off and break down to the G90, the galvanized base sheet under a typical cold storage panel. The caustics do that over time.
Three whites, and they are not the same
The standard white panel is a modified polyester finish. One step up is siliconized modified polyester.
Then there is plastisol. It lasts longer in a high wash-down area with caustics. Put your fingernail into it and it feels rubberized. It has an elastomeric property, so it moves with the panel as it expands and contracts through temperature changes and wash-downs.
Stainless where the washing is hardest
For a wall over a caustic wash-down area, stainless steel is the best surface you can use. We have customers who wash the building down twice a day with hot water, steam and pressure. Their stainless panels are going to hold up the longest.
The panel is 304 stainless, and it comes in both the concealed fastened and the through-fastened series. Which joint you pick is its own decision.
Embossed or smooth stainless
Smooth stainless under high-bay lights can throw enough glare to blind somebody loading product. Embossing breaks the light up.
We lean toward embossed stainless for that, and for one more reason. Stainless gets washed, wiped and oiled constantly, and the embossed face does not show every smudge.
Seal the joint for the wash-down
On these rooms we order the tight reveal, an eighth of an inch or less, and field caulk the long joint. A tight joint gives the water and the mold nowhere to sit.
Tell us what the room is washed with and how often. That decides the finish faster than anything else.
Watch it from the shop floor.
Why stainless in a wash-down room
White panel finishes for washdown
The panel that holds up to washdown
Why emboss stainless steel
Sources
This piece is our own experience, from the shop and the job site. It cites no outside figure, so there is nothing here to source to anybody else.
Where this applies
- Stainless steel FRP, and the stainless wall panel a wash-down room needs.FRP has no steel in it. For a caustic wash-down room, a 304 stainless insulated panel, KS42 or KS45, shown by Don Ross. For the look, a Silversmith architectural panel. Cleveland.
- Food processing wall panels, chosen by the room.Insulated panels for food plant rooms held cold, FRP or UtiLite PVC for wash-down rooms at room temperature. CLEANsafe and stainless faces. Cleveland.
- Cold storage panels for coolers, freezers and cold rooms.Kingspan QuadCore insulated panels, 2 to 8 in. thick, foamed in place, R-32 minimum to -20°F, with trim and Jamison doors. Installed by us or material-only.
- Insulated metal panels for rooms that hold a temperature.Insulated metal panels 2 to 8 in. thick at about R-8 per inch, fire-rated mineral fiber walls and Kingspan cold storage panels. Installed by us or material-only.