Funny thing with coatings—the glossier they are, the faster you notice when they go sour. Highly reflective coatings, especially on rooftops and façades that look like someone dipped a mirror in paint and called it done, sure can make a strong first impression. Until about summer number two, when blotches show up like guests you didn’t invite, bringing big rifts, spiderwebbing cracks, and this kind of yellow-grey smudge that looks like burnt custard.
Some say it’s “environmental wear,” others mumble about “photodegradation microscaling,” but that’s just pepper on a meatloaf that’s already hard to chew. The truth? It’s muck from the sky, grit from exhausts, acid bits from clouds with agendas—plus the coating’s own brittleness, like a muscle that tenses too often.
Why So Crinky, Mr. Glosscoat?
Well well. You’d think a coating advertised as “self-cleaning” wouldn’t start to flake like expired baklava. But turns out, when UV rays and particulate matter have long conversations atop aluminum silicate blends, things age poorly. Sort of like milk left in a sunbeam but with less smell and more lawsuits.
Cracking usually snakes out from exposure points. Window ledges. Rooftop joints. Whatever wasn’t sealed in some obsessive compulsive sealant binge. But even the best prep jobs get hit with two years of scratchy wind and ozone-laced drizzle, and voilà—discoloration sets in first, like shy mold. Then chalking. Then the cracks. How about that.
Conformal coatings protect printed circuit boards (PCBs) and similar electronic components used in a wide range of aerospace, defense, transportation, electronics and medical devices. Coatings effectively cover PCBs, shielding them from contaminants, liquid incursions, temperature fluctuations and other conditions potentially hazardous to component performance. However, problems can develop if preparation, application and drying processes are inappropriately managed.
Consequent defects can compromise the conformally coated surface, leading to poor component operation. Cracking is a major failure mechanism of conformal coating. Cracking in conformal coating occurs when the smooth surface fractures into sections. The cracks in the coating leave the area below exposed to potential contaminants.
https://scscoatings.com/newsroom/blog/cracking-conformal-coating/
Testing the Surface… with a Thumb and Regret
Before anyone pull out the big guns—grinders, epoxies from a catalog that just says “Ultra” too many times—there’s the finger test. Run your thumb across the surface. If it comes back white like you touched sidewalk chalk, congrats: the failure has matured. You now have paint dust where there once was pretension.
Oddly satisfying, that moment. Like peeling off a sunburn. A career maintenance person might even smile. But don’t trust that smile. Behind it is dread. Full repair? Nobody wants to recoat an entire 9,000 sq ft surface just because the moonlight makes it look blotchy now. But alas. The weather doesn’t take questions.
Don’t Rely on the Catalog’s Poetry
Crack fillers get marketed like eye serums. “Improves elasticity.” “UV resistance tested.” “Wets to fractured substrates.” Yeah, and I’m a mountain goat gnawing on a spreadsheet. What’s actually in that tube? Usually a silicone hybrid with a lifespan somewhere between yogurt and grief. Often shrinkage occurs. Visual inconsistency too—like the world’s ugliest band-aid.
Even the best polyurea or polyurethane blends, with their polymers aligned like a marching band, get hazy from dirt napkins called clouds. Repairing over reflective coatings is tricky because you sort of play paint surgeon, but your scalpel is made of masking tape and prayer.
Layer By Crack: The Mercurial Fixing Process
All right. So after you sighed fifteen times into the rafter void and accepted that repair is necessary, here’s the order I usually bungle, then do right:
1. Identify active cracks — not all wrinkles are leaking. Water tests can feel philosophical, but sometimes you just pour a bucket on it and watch where the sad goes.
2. Clean the surface — and not with “a quick once-over.” Nah. That dust has opinions. You scrape. Wire brush if you have to. Get in there. Think barnacles, not breadcrumbs.
3. Neutralize the funk — I mean, acid rain residue. 3:1 solution of water and trisodium phosphate works. Gloves, goggles, and an attitude are required.
4. Prime problem zones — because patching raw UV-damaged coating is like gluing toast together. Use a primer that matches the base chemistry or else you might reverse the sun. (Not in a helpful way.)
5. Flexible filler time — and I mean flexible like “knows four languages” not “sort of mushy.” It needs give. Elongation factors above 200% or it WILL crack again. Don’t cheap the filler.
6. Topcoat. Try color-matching if you like punishment. Or feather it out to fool the eyes. Either way, the gloss will never match exactly. Which is okay unless the client has binoculars.
The Part Where Everyone Pretends It’s Fine
Surface looks better. Kinda. Maybe the cracks are closed up like tired mouths. Color’s semi-uniform, till the sun shifts three degrees and exposes the sins. Job done? Sort of. You’ve stalled the decay for another few seasons. Go home. Or to the next rooftop that thinks it’s a disco ball and forgets it still lives outdoors.
Tips From an Unhinged Coating Inspector
• Never trust a supplier whose coating sample is the size of a playing card and glossy like a doughnut. That’s marketing. You’re painting on metal, concrete, or dreams—not a showroom.
• Pre-inspection photos help you win arguments later, when everyone gaslights you about whether the crack was always there.
• There are coatings with ceramic beads. Sounds cool, right? Till the beads pop out during thermal expansion. Then you’ve got a miniature crater field.
• Don’t ignore corners. They love to hide mold and resentment.
• Calling anything “self-healing” is a marketing sin. Healing implies time and biology. Paint does neither. It dries. End of story.
Why The Sky Hates Us, Basically
In the honest truth of things, aerial pollution isn’t just smog-wafting romance. It’s iron-laced, soot-nurtured, pH-jumping fog that scratches surfaces while pretending to be ethereal. Add in sun. Add rain. Stir until panic. The coatings? Just coats. Beautiful ones, sure. Shiny, gleaming. But fragile in their brilliance.
Cracking’s inevitable. Even with yearly maintenance. Unless you’re painting your house inside a Ziploc. The art’s in knowing when to patch, when to paint, and when to nod during meetings like everything’s going to be alright.
Roof maintenance is the periodic checking of the condition of your roof and all the vulnerable areas susceptible to potential problems. It’s also the best way to keep track of your roof’s age and when it’s time for a roof replacement.
Depending on the type of roofing material, it will be annual, biannual, or quarterly maintenance. However, I always recommend maintaining your roof at least once a year.
Just know that roof maintenance isn’t free and can cost anywhere from $120 to $400, depending on the roofing contractor. However, most companies offer maintenance programs for a flat fee that comes with other great perks.
https://www.billraganroofing.com/blog/why-roof-maintenance-important
In Closing, If We Must
Repairing reflective coatings marred by skies full of invisible knives ain’t a glamour gig. It’s sweaty and usually uphill. But there’s a kind of satisfaction in it. Like straightening a bent nail with your thumb. Nothing headline-worthy. Just the daily absurdity of trying to keep walls from peeling like citrus in a juicer made of time.
Anyway. Next coat’ll be better, right?
Right.
