Facades

Apart from the overall architerctural design, a facade is what most contributes to the appearance of a building. It gives evidence of the time when it was built, the then technologies and aesthetics, but also uncovers a lot about the personality of the owner of the building. It completes the look and feel of the structure, provides thermal insulation and protects the structure from the weather. To protect against the weather has been its main function since time immemorial, though the materials used keep changing. For instance lime paint, widely used in the past, is not suitable for today’s polluted urban environment.When choosing the right type of facade, one should consider the costs, the durability, the needed maintenance, the material’s insulating properties and moisture resistance, and – last but not least – whether it’s suitable for the given building. A quality facade must be designed in tune with the climatic conditions and the requirements of the user of the house. The difference in the facade’s surface temperature can reach up to 40 °C within 24 hours, and even 60-80 °C on the southern sides of the facade, which calls for external renderings that provide very good physical properties. The lifespan of a facase is in the range of 20 – 50 years depending on the materials used, the priming coat and the weather conditions.Today, there is a wide range of different ready-mixed plasters available, catering for all the different types of walls and intended uses – from plasters to be processed manually or mechanically, through one-coat plasters and plasters applied in several coatings, to renovating and decorative plasters, and many more.The colour itself isn’t the most important variable when choosing a facade. The following basic colour paints for facades are available, each with different properties: dispersive acrylate, silicate and silicon-modified acrylate.Thermal insulation systems represent another type of facades. Either air-permeable insulation or the so-called ETICS (External Thermal Insulation Composite System) is used for the outer insulation of a building.