Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
> 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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
~
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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.
