Steel IQ

COR-10™ vs. A1008 or Painted Steel?

Which is better? Cold Roll A1008 or Cor-10™ or a painted steel?

To decide which product is best for your project there are many factors, it our mission is help you make a Smart globally good decision. Read on….

Cor-10™. A1008

A1008 is less expensive because the copper in Cor-10™ is expensive. So it gets the $ benefit.
A1008 is browner not as deep a red as Cor-10™ so that is a matter of aesthetic preference.
A1008 will not rust as uniformly as Cor-10™ That may actually add to the beauty, again a matter of aesthetic preference.

Cor-10™is a “cold roll” product it just has copper in it. That copper reduces pitting. Copper is expensive.
Cor-10™ rusts more evenly and has a deep red cinnamon color. This is due to the copper content; copper distributes heat more uniformly and thus the moisture that oxidizes reacts more consistently.
Cor-10™ is the premium…it is the best in rustic steel.

Life-span

Both A1008 and Cor-10™ are life time roofing products, as long as the gauge is 22 or less (lower number means thicker gauge). The copper in Cor-10™ add 10-20 years to the life of the roof because copper helps prevent pitting. However, any heavy gauge roof is not going to pit for many many years…maybe over 80 years. Let’s do our part to make sure the Earth is still inhabitable before we quibble about having roofs that last 200 years.

Many industrial projects use heavy plate and it is anyone’s guess whether that is really A1008 or A606. Heavy plate is what our bridges are made of; the life span is ….well for as long as we humans are still around to care. Often the only way to tell the difference is the color and the cost.

Heat

Cor-10™  & A1008 are HOT. Yep in the hot sun both will get very hot. This is not to discourage anyone from using it. Arizona has some of the most beautiful steel structures. (See bus station photo at Fashion Square Mall, Scottsdale AZ.) Use common sense! The heat is a benefit in cold climates and a good insulation prevents the transference of heat to the living area. Use a really good insulation! Any metal roof must be insulated Cool Roof paint will not stop heat or cold if it is not insulated properly.

Painted vs. Bare?

Cool Color paint system…cool or not? Cool Color technology is really common sense but not rocket science. Lighter colors are naturally more solar reflective. If you have a white car or a black car, which is warmer when you leave it in a parking lot on a hot day? The black one right, in reality both are too hot to sit in so the benefit of a “technologically advanced” paint system is only important if you just insist on a certain color (black, blue, green, brown ect.) roof.

This is a matter of aesthetics, not energy in our opinion. We are so fed up with the hype that one can paint something “green” and it is green. It is the process of painting steel that is “un-green” not the color or the benefits. We know a fair amount about pigments and the process of painting steel, and there are some very responsible chemical companies that paint steel. But it is still a process that is toxic. Think of words like galvanization, polychromic dye, hydrochloric acid, phosphoric acid, zinc oxide and a whole litany of solvents, adhesives, plastics, resins and the list of chemicals go on and on.

Why bother? Why not just go to bare beautiful natural steel?

• It is our stand that a painted product is less green because of the painting process.
• That the solar reflectivity does not add enough benefit to justify the immense toxic waste that chemical companies create.

So there! Bare is better! Bare Naked Steel™ is better yet…see the green check list!

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