The service life of the roof depends on the minimum service life of all components and on the quality of installation. If you want to provide comfort and warmth for your family – remember: there are no minor trifles in building a house, and even a small self-tapping screw can play a significant role in the fate of your roof.
High-quality self-tapping screw
To ensure the tightness of the attachment point, the roofing screw must necessarily have a rubber washer. Self-tapping screws are of high quality and, let’s say, not quite. On a poor-quality self-tapping screw, the rubber gasket is easily separated from the washer. High-quality self-tapping screws, as a rule, are marked (Fig. 1, 2).
Poor self-tapping screw
If you buy unnamed self-tapping screws, it is likely that the rubber washer on it will collapse in two years, moisture will get under the screw’s cap, and rusty smudges will appear on the roof, which you were so proud of..
For the production of branded self-tapping screws, high-quality carbon steel with an anti-corrosion coating or stainless steel is used, the products of which are about twice as expensive.
High-quality self-tapping screw
One of the ways to distinguish high-quality and low-quality self-tapping screws is to squeeze the washer with pliers. On the branded self-tapping screw, the painted surface and rubber gasket will remain intact (Fig. 3).
If the quality is not good, the paint will peel off and the rubber washer will be damaged (Fig. 4).
Poor self-tapping screw
The most famous brands of self-tapping screws are SFS and Ferrometal. These self-tapping screws are made in Europe, pass the strictest quality control, and are tested for prolonged and extreme loads. Each screw must withstand 20,000 vibrations at 5 degrees, 2000 at 10 degrees, and 100 at 15, without irreversible changes in the metal structure, which corresponds to a more than 50-year life cycle of metal structures. In the production of such self-tapping screws, only an EPDM gasket is used – a weather-resistant rubber of increased elasticity, resistant to temperature and chemical influences.
Leading manufacturers of metal tiles complete their products only with high-quality fasteners, and in the case of fakes used by developers, they are denied guarantees. No insurance company will insure an object if the fastenings are of dubious quality.
The article is quite interesting, but I’m left wondering about the different uses of the small self-tapping screw. I understand its role in fastening materials together, but are there any specific industries or applications where this screw is particularly important? Additionally, what are the main advantages of using a self-tapping screw compared to other types of screws?
What specific applications or industries rely heavily on the use of small self-tapping screws?