Lower cleaning and maintenance costs.

A directly visible effect of EcoClean™ is the self-cleaning of the aluminium façade cladding, resulting in a significant reduction in cleaning and maintenance costs. Thanks to its photocatalytic and superhydrophilic characteristics, EcoClean™ ensures that organic substances are constantly broken up and washed off. In the presence of humidity, the surface becomes extremely smooth. As soon as it rains, therefore, the water does not remain on the surface, but runs off the building at all points, taking most of the organic substances and nitrates that have been broken down with it. Even the smallest amount of rain or humidity in the air, such as morning dew, will activate EcoClean™. Each time this happens, the water washes the dispersed pollutants from the building, leaving the façade cleaner than before. This is how the aluminium façade cladding can retain its completely clean appearance over a long period of time.

The cleaning and maintenance cost savings that result must be set against a manufacturing process that is slightly more involved. This latter only has a minimal effect on the overall price of the cladding, however. Depending on the type of cladding system, Alcoa assesses the increase in price as between 1.5 and 5 percent. There is no increase in effort or time for processing and installation specialists, however. Reynobond®|Reynolux® with EcoClean™ is just as easy to process and fit as traditional cladding products. And when the overall costs over a building lifetime are taken into consideration, a façade made up of Reynobond® or Reynolux® cladding coated with EcoClean™ is even more economic.

When calculated over the lifetime of the cladding, the lower maintenance costs result in a clear cost benefit. Studies show that on commercial buildings with glass façades that had been coated with TOTO®’s Hydrotect™ technology (the basis for EcoClean™), a reduction in cleaning costs of up to 75 percent was possible!

Example of cost savings via EcoClean™:

Cleaning a 1,000 m2 area of façade costs on average 4.50 €/m2. One annual clean costs € 4,500, so after five years that is already € 22,500. You can save on these costs with self-cleaning EcoClean™ façade cladding, which only requires occasional cleaning.