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Tiles Compared to Hygienic Wall Cladding

Fig.1 Installation and maintenance cost over a 20 year period *

There are a considerable amount of variables when comparing life cycle costs of antimicrobial hygienic wall cladding over tiles. The variation in thickness, width, height, grout and intended application can all vary the lifecycle costs considerably. There are a few core factors that generally cause antimicrobial cladding to be a more economical wall covering system than ceramic tiles.

Ceramic Tiles

  • Lower impact & stain resistance so replacement tiles will be required
  • Higher water vapour transmission causing part or full system failure
  • Poorer appearance retention
  • Low flexibility to match substrate movement
  • Expansion joints required
  • A very slow installation time requiring return visit
  • A wet, dusty and dirty installation process
  • No antimicrobial or antibacterial protection so more cleaning time required

Compare this to antimicrobial hygienic wall cladding:

  • Hygienic cladding is usually cheaper to buy & to install than ceramic tile systems
  • There’s far fewer joints where water that can cause failure in tiles
  • Hygienic cladding is shown to be better impact resistant, no replacements required
  • Flexibility to match substrate movement with no expansion joints required
  • A rapid installation process capable of covering up to 250 meters per day
  • Installation is a cleaner process usually done in a single visit
  • No Grout to replace
  • 100% recyclable

Presuming a typical tile is 100 mm by 200 mm, a single sheet of BioClad antimicrobial cladding at 1220 mm by 3050 mm can cover the area of 186.05 tiles. As both products’ price can vary depending on the quantities being purchased and installation costs can be affected by substrate condition & intricacy of the job, we have used the graph above (fig.1) to illustrate typical life cycle costs.

Hygienic cladding comes with a 20 year installation warranty, in reality it would be expected to out see this three to four times over with little difficulty. A similar area in ceramic tiles typically loses its viability within around 10 years requiring full replacement due to area failure and replacement of impact damaged tiles.

Tiles take considerably longer to clean due to the grout. A 100 square meters can potentially take several hours to clean, a similar surface area of hygienic wall cladding would take less than an hour and use around a quarter of the cleaning chemicals.

The installation and maintenance costs of tiles are invariably more expensive than PVC wall panels but, in addition to this, the quantifiable loss of business due to a 2 – 3 day installation time can impact a business both at the time of initial installation and when the system is in part or fully replaced.

 * Tiles calculated on a £30 – 50 per square meter purchase and installation – presuming a full system replacement is required every 10 years. Antimicrobial cladding costed at a quantity rate of 100 – 120 square meters. Cleaning costed at minimum wage (2013), 3 hours per week for tiles, 1 hour per week for hygienic wall cladding. Maintenance costed at minimum wage (2013), 1 day every 5 years for tiles, 1 day every 10 years for hygienic cladding system.

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