CA2269718A1

CA2269718A1 - Surface cladding system

Info

Publication number: CA2269718A1
Application number: CA002269718A
Authority: CA
Inventors: Thomas Medland
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1999-04-22
Filing date: 1999-04-22
Publication date: 2000-10-22

Description

> CA 02269718 1999-04-22 This invention relates to a waterproof surface cladding system for example a system for cladding walls and ceilings.
Especially the invention relates to hard wearing wall and ceiling cladding systems for use in agricultural or industrial locations in which the walls are frequently subjected to pressure spraying with water or other liquids.
Additionally the wall system of the invention may be useful in recreational and domestic environments such as swimming pools, public washrooms, bathrooms, etc.
There have been long standing problems in providing durable, waterproof, sterilized wall surfaces in many environments. In barns to house animals it is important to provide wall surfaces that may be washed down with strong disinfectants and which will stand up to destructive animals such as pigs. For swimming pools, campground washrooms and shower stalls and domestic bathrooms, car wash premises, etc., a main problem has been water vapour penetration of wall coverings to damage supporting wood frames. A
secondary problem has been the difficulty in providing any partial solution to the first problem while presenting any type of reasonable aesthetic appearance.
Many efforts have been made to overcome these problems.
In animal barns, it is common place to provide a lower wall margin of concrete or metal cladding to guard against the destructive effects of the animals. Sometimes these lower parts of the walls are merely covered with painted plywood. Indeed, the upper parts may also be clad with

- 2 -plywood. Whatever the quality of the paint, such painted plywood is not wholly durable and detached paint chips may be a toxic hazard. Moreover, water penetration to the wood frame is frequent.
In public washrooms and domestic bathrooms ceramic tiles are frequently used to provide a waterproof surface but these are subject to grout mildew and breakage. Some public washrooms have painted brick walls, which, while not proof against vandalism, appear to be the best currently available. There is a very great need to provide an aesthetic, inexpensive cladding for public facilities, which, if not vandal proof, is at least easy to repair.
In commercial environments such as carwashes and other industrial premises, the walls may be clad with metal sheet or may simply be painted brick or concrete. None of these solutions are inexpensive or wholly satisfactory. Moreover, none of them provide any significant degree of heat insulation.
In some environments, specialty paints have been used for waterproofing but these always require a substrate such as drywall or plywood.
To replace wall board, plywood or rigid metal cladding, it would be desirable to provide a plastic coating over the whole wall surface of walls to be subjected to frequent pressure spraying or humidity. Difficulties concerning the

- 3 -durability of any such cladding and a watertight method of attachment have seemed insurmountable. Also, it has been conventional thinking that air access to the wood frame us important.
In fact, such air access to the wood frame is not very important if a truly waterproof surface to guard against ingress of water vapour or water spray is provided. In any event, air access to the frame may be provided from the exterior of the frame.
The inventor of the present invention has addressed the use of corrugated plastic sheet material as wall cladding.
"Corrugated plastic sheet material" as used herein means composite plastic sheet material having a longitudinal dimension and a lateral dimension and a thickness dimension and comprises a pair of parallel surfaces spaced apart by plastic spacers which are continuous in the longitudinal direction. Thus, corrugated plastic sheet material may include a structure formed of plastics material which is strictly comparable to corrugated paperboard, i.e. two sheets of material separated by a intermediate corrugated sheet. Alternatively, it may include a structure comprising two sheets of plastics material separated by longitudinal spacer bars, for example Coroplast (trademark) manufactured by Coroplast Inc.

- 4 -According to the invention there is provided a wall cladding system comprising batons formed of corrugated plastics sheet material for direct attachment to a wall or wall frame, wall cladding of corrugated plastics sheet material and double sided adhesive tape to attach said cladding to said batons at least at margins of said wall cladding.
The double sided adhesive tape should preferably be foamed plastics material having some resilience.
The batons may be attached to a wall or wall frame by any convenient attachment means such as nails, screws, staples or the like. The double sided adhesive tape may be applied over any such attachment means. This may provide an additional guard against any water ingress around the attachment means. The wall cladding is then applied over the double sided adhesive tape to seal the wall cladding to the tape at least at its margins. Where the edges of the two sheet of cladding abut one another, they are applied over a single piece of tape to form a water tight seal.
It is possible to use secondary attachment means for the wall cladding. For example, pegs may be driven into the baton through the wall cladding and the double sided adhesive tape. The wall cladding may be provided with predrilled holes for this purpose. While the tape and batons could be predrilled also, this is not necessary. It may, however, be convenient to mark them with indicia for

- 5 -convenient peg spacings. Such pegs may add reassurance to the user that the system is securely fixed. However, since very reliable double sided adhesive foam tape is available, such secondary attachment means may not be wholly necessary.
For the purpose of providing water proofing at corners of a building, it is desirable that a continuous plastic surface should extend through the corner to guard against water penetration at such a water retaining location. For this reason it is preferred that two sheets of corrugated plastics sheet material not be abutted at such corners.
Better waterproofing may be obtained by coining a bend line in a single sheet of corrugated plastics sheet material so that it may be bent about the corner. Alternar~VP~~ rrA
margin of one sheet may be provided with a coin line so that it may be bent at the corner. The margin may then be overlapped over an adjacent sheet at the corner.
It is possible that the coining will cause a break in one of the parallel surfaces of the composite sheet material but the other surface should remain in tact to allow proper waterproofing at the corner. Indeed, it may be desirable to slit one surface of the corrugated plastic sheet material at the outer edge of the corner so that a clean bend may be achieved. It is immaterial whether the corner be an outside corner or an inside corner.
Where the system is to be used in a particularly aggressive location, such as in barns where animals can be

- 6 -exceedingly destructive and may damage the lower part of the wall, the wall cladding of corrugated plastics sheet material may be used on the upper part of the wall where animal damage is less prevalent. The lower part of the wall may be clad with high density polyethylene sheet which may be applied in place of, or over the top of, the corrugated plastics sheet material. If the installation is a new installation, the high density polyethylene sheet may be applied to a wooden wall frame before the frame is set on its foundation. In this case, the high density polyethylene sheet may be wrapped around the bottom of the frame for additional insurance against water penetration.
Where a horizontal join occurs between high density polyethylene sheet on the lower wall surface and the corrugated plastics sheet material of the wall cladding of the upper surface, a seal may be provided between them. The seal may comprise an inner strip applied in water tight manner to the corrugated plastics sheet material and an outer strip applied to the high density polyethylene sheet.
The strips may mate together in water tight manner by means of snap together fastening. One of the strips may include a longitudinal groove along its length and the other of the strips may include a longitudinal rib along its length, the rib being manually engagable into the groove in male/female water tight engagement.

7 _ Embodiments of the invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
Figure 1 illustrates a wall cladding system according to the invention;
Figure 2 shows the use of the system of Figure 1 in relation to a wooden frame wall;
Figure 3 shows the behaviour of corrugated plastics material sheet at a corner;
Figure 4 shows an alternative arrangement at a corner;
Figure 5 is a cross section through a wall having reinforced wall cladding according to the invention over a lower part of the wall; and Figure 6 is a section through a wall having an alternative reinforced wall cladding according to the invention over a lower part of the wall.
Figure 1 of the drawings shows an interior corner of the interior of a space of which the walls are clad with a wall system according to the invention. Walls 10, 12 and ceiling 13 are clad with sheets of corrugated plastics sheet material 14, which may, for example, be Coroplast. Batons 18 of the same corrugated plastics sheet material are applied to the wall frame 16 using screws, nails or other attachment means. Double sided adhesive tape is applied over the heads of the screws 22. Wall cladding sheets 14 are applied over the adhesive tape 20 at least at their margins. Where adjacent wall cladding sheets 14 have g _ abutting adjacent edges, each of these edges is aligned with the centre longitudinal line of the adhesive tape 20.
Where the wall frame 16 is a standard stud wall frame having vertical studs at intervals, e.g. 16 inches, batons 18 of corrugated plastics sheet material may be applied to each stud and double sided adhesive tape may be applied to each baton. Batons 18 and adhesive tape 20 may also be applied to the top and bottom of the wall frame asymmetrically on frame 16 to attach sheets 14 as close as possible to the floor or ceiling. This arrangement may better be seen from Figure 2.
The double sided adhesive tape 20 may suitably be double sided adhesive foam tape to provide some resilience and additional sealing between wall cladding 14 and baton 18. The tape should have sufficient width to allow both vertical margins of adjacent cladding sheets 14 to seal against the tape. The tape may, for example, be double coated rubber polyethylene foam tape of the EO type cross linked. It may be closed cell black and white polyethylene foam coated with 2 mils of a solvent free rubber resin emulsion on each side with a 60# Densified Kraft liner. The adhesive is formulated to provide an aggressive water based, high shear product. The thickness of the tape is not of importance but may suitably be 1/32 inches.
The double sided adhesive tape may usually provide sufficient attachment for the cladding sheets 14. However _ g _ for additional security plastic material pegs 28 may be used between batons 18 and cladding sheets 14. The batons 18, tape 20 and sheets 14 may be predrilled to accept shank 29 of peg 28 tightly in the drilled holes. Pegs 28 should have heads 31 of appreciable diameter to guard against water ingress.
At an internal corner 24 one of the wall cladding sheets 14 bends around the corner at coin line 26. Coin line 26 is applied vertically on that surface of wall cladding sheet 14 which is to form the outer angle.
The behaviour of the corrugated plastics sheet material, when bent about a coin line is demonstrated in Figure 3 which show the plastic sheet having two parallel surfaces 30, 32 bent about coin line 26 so that surface 30 presents an unbroken water tight surface while surface 32 is illustrated as having a break 34. It is to be noted that break 34 may not occur but only stretching of surface 32.
Nevertheless, even when a break 34 occurs, a continuous surface is presented at the corner against the ingress of water vapour.
It may, in fact, be advantageous to actually slit surface 32 when forming the coined line 26. If such a slit is made, it may be easier to bend cladding sheet 14 about coin line 26 without buckling or irregularity.

Where it is not desired to provide a coined line 26 to bend a large sheet 14 of cladding around a corner, abutting sheets may be used at corners but it is desirable to bend a margin of one of the sheets so that it overlies the adjacent sheet as shown in Figure 4. Such a join may be sealed with silicone sealant Figure 5 shows a cross section of a wall system according to the invention intended for heavy duty use such as in animal barns. The system of Figure 4 shows wall cladding sheet 14 exposed over an upper portion of the wall, 10, 12 and reinforcing, high density polyethylene sheet 36 covering the lower portion of the wall and the lower surface of the wall cladding sheets 14. In fact, to save expense, it may not be necessary to extend wall cladding sheets downwardly to the floor. They may, instead, end just below the top edge of high density sheet 36 as shown in Figure 5.
The high density polyethylene sheet 36 is shown as wrapping around the bottom of wood frame 16 to protect it against any possible ingress of water at the bottom edge.
Wood frame 16 may then be located in a groove of a concrete or other foundation with minimum fear of rotting due to water penetration. Of course, for existing structures, high density polyethylene sheet 36 may have a lower edge abutting the foundation 38 and a suitable seal may be applied. Coin lines 37 may be provided to facilitate wrapping of high density polyethylene sheet 36 about the bottom of wood frame 16.

Where high density polyethylene sheet 36 adjoins cladding sheet 14, a seal 40, for example a rubber gasket, may be applied between them (see Figure 5). The seal 40 is conveniently a two part seal having an elongate female member applied to wall cladding sheet 14 and an elongate male member applied to high density polyethylene sheet 36 to snap into female member 42 along its length. Of course, as an alternative, the male member may be applied to the wall cladding sheet and the female member may be applied to the high density polyethylene sheet 36.
In some situations it may not be necessary to go to the extra expense of providing a two part rubber gasket. As shown in Figure 6, for less expensive installations, it maybe possible to seal between a margin 46 of the high density polyethylene sheet and the cladding sheet 14 with silicone sealant. The upper margin 46 of the high density polyethylene sheet 36 may be tightened against a lower margin 15 of the cladding sheet 14 by means of pegs 28 which fasten the upper margin 46 of the high density sheet 36 and the lower margin 15 of the cladding sheet 14 at least into one of the batons 18.
The thickness of the corrugated plastics sheet material used for cladding panels 14 may be of any convenient gauge depending on the application and the durability and heat insulation required. Corrugated plastics sheet material has an appreciable heat insulation capacity due to the air pockets trapped within it. The R value of such insulation ~

is dependent upon the thickness of the material. The use of material of any particular thickness is entirely dependent upon choice. It is suggested that for very general purposes a thickness of 6 mil for wall surfaces and a thickness of 4 mil for ceilings surfaces may be suitable.
It is expected that the wall cladding system of the invention will be useful in a very large number of diverse environments for example those already discussed. In commercial environments such as car wash premises and some industrial locations, the smooth surface of the corrugated plastic sheet material may provide improved water proofing and improved aesthetic appearance. Moreover, because the smooth surface is somewhat slippery it may be easier to wash down than conventional cladding materials. Somewhat similar considerations apply for public facilities such as public washrooms, swimming pools, subway stations, etc. For agricultural environments the system may provide at least as high a degree of resistance to destruction as conventional wall surfaces. Moreover, it is easy to sterilize and may provide some heat insulation. For domestic environments it is anticipated that it may be particularly useful for garages, outside storage areas and unfinished basements.
When used in garages it may allow the householder the facility to wash the car indoors.