Any products that go into your barn are large capital investments. This includes any horse stalls, barn doors, barn windows, and flooring. The right horse stalls, barn doors, barn windows, and other products go a long way in your barn's long term success.
Although the environment inside any working horse barn is tough, you can still keep the finish looking beautiful with a few simple steps. In this article, we'd like to talk about our materials, but also some best practices to ensure your American Stalls products stand the test of time.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR MATERIALS:
Our steel-based products include two main components to consider: the steel and the powder coat finish.
All of our horse stalls, barn doors, barn windows, and steel-based fencing uses pre-galvanized steel at the minimum. We do not use any black carbon steel on any components. We only use pre-galvanized steel (at the minimum) for increased longevity and durability. This is especially important for clients that are close to coast lines where salt exposure is high.
In addition to the steel, most products are finished in a polyester powder coat finish. Our polyester powder coat finish provides fantastic weather resistance and UV resistance. Our powder coat finish is also especially designed for agricultural use. This ensures that your finish has a longer gloss retention and sticks better to all surface area. This means that our powder coat finish will adhere beautifully to corners and edges. Lastly, we choose a powder coat as opposed to wet paint to ensure that your finish is uniform, smooth, and resistant to chips.
Please note that the only exception is when we hot-dip galvanize our steel for clients on coastal areas. Hot-dip galvanized steel is the only instance where we do not apply a powder coat finish because of issues with adherence.
THE BEST WAY TO CARE FOR YOUR STALL FINISH
For starters, we recommend that you keep an eye on items that hang from your stalls including halters, feed bags, blanket bars, bridle hooks, and more. Over time, the constant wearing can mar or scratch the powder coat finish. If you do see any scratches, it is crucial to address scratches and scrapes as soon as possible. This is important to make sure that the exposed steel is touched up before it becomes a bigger issue. Please kindly contact our American Stalls team for touch-up paint to fix these small scratches.
Next, let's talk about how to clean and wash your powder coat finish. After all, simple and consistent maintenance will reduces the damage done to your power-coated stalls. Consistent care will also prolong the use of your stall and door products – potentially doubling or tripling the powder-coatings’ effective service life. Below are a few recommendations when you wash and clean your powder coat finishes.
Pressure Cleaning:
Pressure cleaning (low pressure) is one of the most efficient methods in cleaning steel products with powder coat finishes.
When pressure cleaning, it is important that low pressure be used. This is because the higher pressures can potentially be strong enough to damage the finish. In addition to the pressure, we recommend to be mindful about the cleaning agent of choice. Never use chlorine or any other cleaning agents with harsh, corrosive chemical properties. We recommend to only use mild detergents.
Cleaning Agents of Choice
As mentioned above, we recommend to only use mild soaps as a cleaning agents. This mild detergent should be pH neutral and used with warm water to improve the cleaning effectiveness. All powder coated products should be cleaned with either a soft cloth (or soft sponge) and a solution of mild soap and warm water.
One extra tip is to avoid using Clorox wipes and other alcohol-based wipes to clean stalls and latches. In the age of COVID-19, our clients have cleaned their stalls more than ever. This is especially true at busy commercial horse barns such as boarding barns, training barns, and horse show facilities. We recommend against Clorox wipes since they include chemicals that are not friendly to powder coat finishes and steel galvanization. Over time, excessive use of Clorox wipes can eat into the finish of your powder coat and the steel's galvanization.
To summarize, we recommend to only use soft clothes (or sponges) with a solution of warm water and mild soap to clean your steel horse barn products. Lastly, keep an eye out on your stall, door, and window products to address any chips and scratches as they arise to avoid long-term issues.
Contact our American Stalls if you have any other questions on how to best care and maintain your products. Contact us at (855) 957-8255 or email us at sales@americanstalls.com
