Birds, vandalism, construction defects, storms and falling branches endanger building envelopes and other constructions made of ETFE film. However, this robust film is very resilient and does not continue to tear, even under tension. Therefore, most areas of damage remain relatively small at first. Nevertheless, from the perspective of preventive maintenance it is necessary to respond to such damage.
Replacing an entire membrane cushion is costly and time-consuming. The removal of the damaged component is usually only possible with the help of a specialist company (e.g. facades or roofs at great heights). The damaged membrane cushion has to be repaired by the manufacturer as the repair of entire ETFE membrane cushions is technically complex.
Repairing a damaged area (puncture, hole, crack) with a “patch” is therefore advisable. This repair patch should be as easy as possible to apply, permanent and as unobtrusive as possible. These requirements are met by CMC Klebetechnik’s ETFE adhesive tape, which has been tried and tested for 30 years. All adhesive films in the CMC 777xx family of products have an extremely long service life, are highly transparent, do not yellow and are not permeable to water when installed correctly (suitable for indoor and outdoor use).
However, using entire rolls of adhesive tape can be very impractical, especially when repairing minor damage at great heights. Many industrial climbers therefore cut strips of the material on the ground beforehand. But even with such pre-cut strips, it was still difficult to carry out free-hanging repairs as you still had to laboriously remove the protective cover from the adhesive layer... at least until now.
The new solution for simple repairs:
repair sets made of the new EASY Peel-Off material CMC 77735
CMC Klebetechnik has developed a new version of the well-known CMC 77701 ETFE adhesive tape, specially for the maintenance and repair of ETFE membrane structures. Pre-formed stickers made of this material can be removed from the carrier film with ease. Much like using a sheet full of sticky labels, repairs can now be carried out even when wearing gloves. This means that applying a large number of repair patches is made easy. This means no more juggling of scissors or knives and no more unnecessary consumption of large quantities of material because the correct size for the repair can now be chosen on the spot and does not have to be guessed whilst still on the ground so there is no need to mess around with protective covers.
EASY Peel-Off system repair patches make repairs of damage to ETFE film easier, significantly reduce maintenance costs and save on operating costs in cases where compressed air is used to stabilise ETFE membrane cushions.
The size of CMC 77735 repair patches can be changed in accordance with customer needs. This also applies to smaller quantities, starting at 500 pieces. Sizes ranging from 30x30 mm to 300x300 mm are available. Sheet material can be individually tailored for quantities of 100 sheets or more.