Build With Fasteners That Can Stand Up to the Sun

You might not think too much about how temperature can affect the materials and tools on a construction site, but it certainly does—and in all kinds of ways. Virtually every building material has thermal properties of one kind or another than can create subtle (or not so subtle) problems when they manifest during sizzling summer weather under the sun.

Therefore, summer construction must be handled carefully, and your choices with building materials should factor in too. Even equipment as simple as fasteners can be affected by summer heat. Alternative choices such as BECK's fasteners with a FasCoat® finish can make a major difference in worksite safety and construction endurance. Let's start with some details about the effects of temperature, before moving on to options for optimizing the fasteners you use.

Fasteners and the Sun, Things to Keep in Mind

Temperatures can majorly affect fastening materials. Summer heat can cause different metal alloys or assorted designs to do odd things when used and this can affect the quality of your construction.

For example, high temperatures can make any metal softer, and thus more prone to thermal expansion that later disappears when the cold comes. These expansions and contractions can make a screw or nail come loose in its place and whatever it is holding firmly to, starts shifting as well over time.

What's more, this loosening of the fastener creates a tiny space that moisture, mold, and eventually, rust can start creeping into. Once that happens, bets are off on the kind of damage that could snowball over the years.

Even if your fasteners have no problem with the kinds of temperatures that a hard summer day can create, the wood or other building materials—such as plastics—that they're driven into almost certainly will expand and later contract. This too will produce tiny spaces that slow corrosion can settle into.

For these conditions, treated screws, nails, and nail screw fasteners become crucial. The better their treatment and the more it's designed over the right kind of metal as well, the better the corrosion resistance of your building project.

The Right Fasteners with the Right Properties

Regardless of the weather at any given moment, you need fastening materials that will stay strong regardless of how they're exposed to sun, moisture, temperature changes, and the risks that cause corrosion. This is where treated metals and alloy combinations come into play. High-quality treated fasteners such as those covered with BECK's FasCoat® finish are specially developed for outdoor applications in which corrosion resistance is crucial.

These kinds of nails and nail screw fasteners deliver extreme corrosion protection that lasts even if moisture or weather extremes keep coming over the years. In the case of FasCoat®-coated fasteners, tests with constant salt spray testing have demonstrated the resilience of 2,000 hours or more until the first onset of any rust. This is the kind of endurance that your construction site should include.