Ten Benefits of Metal Plating Your Building’s Hardware

Did you know that metal plating your building’s hardware can provide a multitude of benefits? Every building comes with a certain number of small but necessary pieces. Door handles and latch-plates, light switch plates, hinges and knobs, vent covers, faucets and faucet handles. Between these many small pieces of building hardware is the health and structure of your building. Each one seems insignificant and easily replaceable, but together, they are an important part of the greater whole.

When most companies are considering building improvements, hardware almost never makes the list. You think about your plumbing, office layout, lobby design, and elevator efficiency. But with the right attention to detail, you could subtly improve the quality and durability of your entire building. The key is simple: Metal plating your building’s hardware pieces. From the hinges to the vent covers, a bright new layer of metal plating is the perfect way to shine-up your office and decrease the wear-and-tear your infrastructure experiences over time.

Today, we’re here to highlight twelve incredibly useful benefits of metal plating your building hardware. While you can no doubt predict a few, some of these will probably surprise you. There are more benefits to a simple layer of protective metal than most people realize.

Improved Appearance

Not all building hardware is made of attractive material. The first and most obvious benefit of metal plating benefits is appearance. Any time you add a new finishing coat to an item, it’s going to look better. But there’s a big difference between painting over your door hinges and a clean shiny new metal plating. When done right, metal plating can make your entire building interior look more professional and refined, with a new set of gleaming building hardware accenting your wood, paint, and other finishes.

For the purpose of interior decorating, you can not only choose metal finishing color, but you can also choose between matte, semi-bright and bright finish. This gives you the ability to completely control the look and feel of your building interior while also providing all the other great benefits of metal plating that we have yet to mention. Whether you want mirror-bright

Unified Appearance

Of course, the appealing gleam of metal isn’t the only benefit. Many buildings have been upgraded and repaired in sections throughout the years, leaving the building hardware mismatched from floor to floor and sometimes from one office to the next. If you want to unify your internal look, there’s no need to buy all-new matching building hardware. Instead, you can metal plate all your hardware to look as though it was bought as a matching set.

This is a great way to unify the appearance of your interior. Rather than having half a dozen different tones of metal, all different ages and design, you can ensure that every hinge, doorknob, and light switch plate are the same cool uniform color of polished metal. Not only is this a sleek way to design your office, but it’s also more practical than buying new matching hardware.

Scratch and Chip Resistant

One of the biggest downsides of sturdy but cheap building hardware is scratch-resistance. Or rather, lack thereof. Look at any old building hardware from floor to ceiling and you will see a number of scratches, scuffs, and chips in the top surface. Maybe it was a coat of wall paint from the last time the painters were in. Maybe it was the factory finish that has begun to wear away.

Getting your building hardware professionally metal plated is the ideal way to not only make it look good now, but also ensure that it looks good five and ten years from now. In fact, this is one of the reasons why some businesses choose to metal plate new hardware before installing it. Whether your hardware is already scratched or still new and undamaged, metal plating will keep it safe from any impacts, scuffs, or scrapes that might make your building look shabby over time.

Corrosion Prevention

But metal plating isn’t just good for appearances. Metal plating can also be your best one-stop solution to corrosion. There are many types of building fixtures that are exposed to moisture on a regular basis and are far more likely to corrode than others. In most cases, corrosion is a process of water exposure and oxidation, like rust on iron. But it can also come from a build-up of water or chemical residue that passes over the hardware on a regular basis.

From faucets to washer hoses, the right metal plating can help to prevent both visible and invisible corrosion. This can improve your water flow, help keep your faucets clean, and make repairs much easier in the future.

Better Strength and Durability

Some types of building hardware take more abuse than others. Latch plates, for instance, are those little plates inside the doorframe that handles and deadbolts latch into. Hinges, hanging brackets, and light fixtures may also experience far more stress than other pieces of building hardware.

For these, there is a special reason to use metal plating. Once coated in sturdy metal, your key load-bearing hardware pieces will actually become stronger and more durable. Especially if you use a thick plating that will essentially form a metal armor around the piece. Metal plating is a great way to reinforce your building hardware, increasing it’s strength, durability, and longevity. Consider separating out your pieces that bear the most weight and having them coated separately to enhance this benefit.

Antibacterial and Chemical Resistance

Did you know that some metals have uniquely scientific properties? Both silver and copper have significant antibacterial properties, killing bacteria and other microbes at the cellular level. Other metals including zinc, nickel, and cobalt have minor antibacterial properties.

The benefit of plating your hardware in an antibacterial metal is that it becomes mildly self-cleaning. This is especially useful for things like doorknobs, handrails, and light switches where dozens of hands may touch the same place each day.

Different alloys can also be useful to make your building hardware resistant to chemical corrosion. This treatment is most popular for manufacturing parts, but there may be areas of your building where chemical resistance is important. It’s worth considering that even strong cleaners can pit or damage finishes without some chemical resistance.

Improved Paint Adhesion

Sometimes, you need to refinish an object so that it can be more effectively painted. A piece of building hardware that is scratched, pitted, or the wrong texture can actually make it remarkably difficult to achieve an attractive paint job. Even if you usually paint over the hardware without concern.

Some finishes cause the paint to flake away while others create an undesirable texture. Metal plating is a solution to all these challenges. Depending on the way you apply the metal plating, you can perfectly control the final texture. By working with a metal plating professional, you can choose a texture that will work exactly right with the kind of paint you want to use. Metal plating can make it easier to paint and repaint your hardware for many years in the future.

Electrical Conductivity

In some cases, the purpose of metal plating is to make an object more able to conduct an electric current. This is most often used in electrician’s hardware and circuit boards, where electrical conductivity is most important. However, if you are working on the wiring and electric fixtures in your building, then a fresh coat of conductive metal plating may be useful.

Because some metals are more conductive than others, the type of plating you choose will determine how conductive the hardware will be.

Electrical Resistance

What might be of more immediate interest to you is the opposite function: Making hardware less electrically conductive. If you’ve ever gotten a shock from a handrail or a doorknob, you know how valuable low-conductivity building hardware can be. This could be your ideal opportunity to make your building subtly more welcoming to guests by failing to store up and transmit static electricity.

Choosing a metal plating for its non-conductive properties is a great way to refinish any hardware that people touch on a regular basis. The fewer people get static-shocked, the better. This choice may also be more useful in areas that house high-voltage machinery.

Temperature Resistance

Finally, it’s a simple fact that metal plated objects are more resistant to high temperatures than other materials, And you can actually metal-coat things that were not metal initially, like plastic door hardware or outlet covers. Metal plating is more durable at very high and low temperatures. With the right alloy, you can also reduce the temperature conductivity of your building hardware as well. This can prevent metal coated items from becoming hot or cold as quickly as the room around them.

Building hardware is a subtle but persistent part of your facility. If you want your hardware to look its best and last at top-quality for years in the future, metal plating is your best option. This is a great way to make all your building hardware look like it came from the same matching set and make it more durable in a number of ways. Even better, you can choose a plating that is anti-bacterial, helping to reduce the spread of illness throughout your entire facility. Whatever the reason you’re considering metal plating, contact the TLC Metal today! We’re ready to show you exactly the kind of metal plating you need for each type of hardware.