There are many different types of sealers available and a detailed description of them all is not the intention here, so the options for each surface type are detailed below:
Roofs:
Coloured Acrylic coatings – Used to re-colour and seal old roof tiles
Clear Acrylic coatings – used where the existing tiles are self coloured, or have retained their original factory coatings, and the requirement is to protect this.
Clear penetrating sealers – A more recent development in surface sealing, this type of product penetrates deeply into the material surface and coats the pores of the material, stopping the ingress of water, dirt, moss, mould’s and algae’s, can be very effective and long lasting
Block paving (monoblock)
Clear Acrylic: Acrylic based sealers are the most common, and can be either solvent of water based, some people prefer the solvent based option, believing that it provides a stronger bond to the material surface, but both water and solvent based products contain the same level of acrylic product, so in theory there should be little difference between the two. Water based acrylics can now come with weed inhibitors built in though, which offers a higher level of protection against existing and new weed growth.
Clear Urethane: Always solvent based and can be very tough and long lasting, but costs more and is more difficult to apply. It is also problematic to re-coat when it starts to wear away, and very difficult to fix should the application process not go to plan.
Posted in: Sealers
