Avoiding Common Mistakes With Industrial Equipment

If you are planning an improvement project for your residential landscape, you should consider incorporating green walls and façades into your home. Green walls are essentially vertical gardens which may be freestanding or even attached to your building. They often have an integrated growth medium like peat moss, vermiculate and even soil on the supporting surface to promote development. Green façades are normally made from climbing plants which are established on the ground and creep up a supporting frame. If you decide to install these features, you should consider using stainless steel mesh as the support structure. With this strong and durable frame, the façades and green walls can be installed as part of the home fencing or independent garden features. Here are some considerations to help you choose the stainless steel mesh for your home.

Welded or Woven Product

When purchasing your stainless steel mesh, you will have to choose between welded and woven products. Both are reliable choices, but it is imperative to appreciate their dissimilarities before making your choice. Woven steel meshes are popular in landscaping projects because they are structurally strong. The wires in the product are interlinked forming a bond that cannot be broken by pressure. Therefore, these can support heavy plants and growth medium in the case of green walls. Welded wires consist of vertical and horizontal wires with welded joints, and they are often cheaper due to the easy fabrication process. They are typically stable and resilient, but accidental impact can cause the joint to break.

Type of Stainless Steel

The stainless steel materials in the manufacturing industry are not uniform in terms of quality and performance. Therefore, you should be diligent in ensuring that you have obtained the right type to suit your environmental conditions and specific requirements. There are two primary grades of stainless steel commonly used to manufacture meshes: standard 304 and marine-grade 316. Standard stainless steel will resist rust when exposed to water and air while marine-grade does not degrade when used in saline conditions. The former can be used for handling regular terrestrial plants in non-coastal environment. However, if you are using salty growth medium or live in marine areas, consider 316 steel.

Mesh Size

Finally, ensure that the mesh size suits your application before purchase. Smaller mesh holes are ideal for green walls because they can support more weight. Moreover, the tight knit will prevent accelerated evaporation of water. Green facades are well-matched with larger-size steel meshes because the landscaping climbing plants can weave more comfortably into the frame.