Modern commercial structures often employ the most advanced innovations in architectural designs and materials to make themselves stand out in the business world. The choice of wall panel material can play an integral role, not only for the building’s aesthetics but also in its energy efficiency, safety, and longevity.
If you seek state-of-the-art wall panel options that can check all of these boxes for your own commercial building, metal wall panels may provide you with exactly what you need. Discover five major advantages that you can enjoy from incorporating wall metal panels into your construction or renovation project.
1. Metal Wall Panels Offer a Variety of Looks
Metal walls don’t have to convey a dull gray or monotonously silver look. Modern products come in a wide array of colors, styles, and textures. You can choose from sleek smooth panels, ribbed patterns, avant-garde geometric shapes, and textures that closely mimic organic materials such as stone or wood.
This variety allows you or your architect to create practically any kind of look for your building. Whether your organization can benefit from a comforting vintage aesthetic or an all-business, futuristic one, you can find metal wall panels that express your brand perfectly.
2. Metal Wall Panels Resist Fire
A fire can threaten the lives of your building’s occupants as well as the structural integrity of the building itself. Organic building materials such as wood can burn to ashes quickly, exposing inner wall structures to the blaze and drastically reducing the amount of time occupants have to escape unharmed.
Metal wall panels offer a degree of natural fire resistance. While these panels will eventually fall prey to an intense fire’s effects, they can serve as an effective barrier for hours while also preventing some of the fire’s intense heat from transferring to the building’s interior. This protection gives occupants valuable escape time.
Different thickness of metal wall panels will provide different levels of fire resistance, as rated by standard testing methods. Some products come with a one-hour fire rating, meaning that it should maintain its integrity for at least that long during a fire.
3. Metal Wall Panels Keep Water Away
Rain and moisture can cause numerous problems for commercial building exteriors. Erosion, mold growth, and water absorption can damage a wall’s structural strength. Any moisture that passes through breaches in the wall can then seep into the building’s interior, wreaking even more havoc.
Metal wall panels don’t absorb water, nor do they serve as a natural habitat for mold. Painted steel and aluminum panels also do a good job of resisting corrosion. These traits make metal a natural choice for reducing long-term water damage in your building.
Consider using metal wall panels to create a rain screen for your facility. A rain screen consists of an outer cladding set a certain distance away from the underlying wall of the building, with a drainage system carrying away any water that might penetrate this extra layer of protection.
4. Metal Wall Panels Last for Decades
Metal walls share one key advantage with metal roofs: extraordinary longevity compared to other building material options. Metal wall panels can easily last for several decades before they need replacing, depending on what kind of product you select and what kind of installation that product receives.
Metal composite material (MCM) panels usually offer greater durability than pre-formed, single-skin metal panels. An MCM panel combines metal and plastic layers. This design gives it extra strength and enables it to avoid oil canning, a warping or deformation that sometimes affects thinner metal panels.
If you want to benefit from the affordability of single-skin metal wall panels as well as the superior durability of MCM panels, ask your installer about the possibility of using both in your installation. In this approach, the MCM panels would go on at ground level, where potentially damaging incidents might occur more frequently.
5. Metal Wall Panels Can Reduce Energy Bills
Commercial building owners and managers often struggle to keep their energy expenses under control, especially in buildings with sub-par thermal insulation. In addition to the struggle to keep buildings warm in harsh Minnesota winters, you may find that hours of bright sunshine force you to run your air conditioner especially hard.
Insulated metal walls panels can provide a welcome thermal barrier between the external elements and your employees or customers. These steel or aluminum wall panels feature metal inner and outer layers surrounding an inner layer of insulating foam core. The added insulation boosts your building’s energy efficiency.
Like other kinds of metal wall panels, insulated metal panels come in a variety of widths, colors, and finishes. However, they require skilled installation by experienced technicians to ensure that water does not leak into the spaces between the metal and the foam.
Berwald Roofing & Sheet Metal offers architectural sheet metal and wall panel services in addition to its waterproofing and roofing installation, repair, and maintenance. Contact us today to learn more about your commercial building beautification options.
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2440 Charles, St N
Saint Paul, MN 55109
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