Acratex AcraShield: Protect Your Home’s Facade

by Carlisle Homes

Acrylic rendering keeps your exterior looking newer for longer – discover the benefits of Dulux Acratex AcraShield

Whether you choose a smooth or textured finish, an acrylic rendered surface never fails to impress – it adds an upmarket, modern feel to your home and creates instant kerb appeal. But it is hard to clean and can be prone to cracking and other issues.

Fortunately, there are products on the market, such as Dulux® Acratex AcraShield, that can help alleviate these issues and provide a long-lasting, easy-care finish to your rendered home. If you’re considering an acrylic rendered finish for your new Carlisle home, you may want to consider it as an optional upgrade.

What is Dulux Acratex AcraShield?

Dulux Acratex AcraShield is a high-performance, protective coating that is applied to your home’s facade. It is part of Dulux’s three-step Acratex AcraShield coating system, which protects the external walls of your home against common degradation, such as cracking, fading, salt blooming and staining.

Acratex AcraShield is not a paint – it’s a highly flexible membrane that’s up to three times thicker than decorative paint. It is applied on top of the last coat of coloured acrylic render.

What are the benefits of Acratex AcraShield?

Dulux Acratex AcraShield is weatherproof, mould-, UV- and moisture-resistant, which means it won’t deteriorate like normal paint so that the surface of your home stays looking new for longer.

It reduces the build-up of dirt on your home and is far easier to clean than a regular acrylic-rendered finish.

It offers other benefits too; being flexible, Acratex AcraShield can also hide minor surface cracks that sometimes naturally occur on render. In fact, using Acratex AcraShield extends the warranty on your entire acrylic texture system by years – up to 10 years for one top coat and 15 years for two top coats.

How long does it last?

This will depend on your home’s environment, your home-maintenance habits and how many coats were originally applied.

In order to rejuvenate the surface appearance of your home, Dulux recommends recoating a two-coat system after seven to 10 years and a three-coat system after 10 to 15 years.

Be sure to have this done by a Dulux-trained applicator to maintain your warranty.

What surfaces can Acratex AcraShield be used on?

Acratex Acrashield can be used on cement render.

How do I clean it?

You can remove light soil, grime and airborne pollutants with a low-pressure water blast (less than 450kpa), holding the hose at a 45-degree angle to the wall. The fan of the water blaster should be kept 30 centimetres from the Acratex AcraShield coating to avoid any damage. Never use a high-pressure water blaster on your Acratex AcraShield surface.

For smaller areas of grime, use a scrubbing brush and a solution of detergent and warm water.

As a general guide, look to get your home professionally cleaned every 12 to 18 months or every six months if you live in a coastal region where salt build-up is an issue.