Sign installation requires hands of a surgeon, patience of a saint and the touch of a midwife.

I'll admit that years of experience installing signs has made me a bit of a perfectionist. Great satisfaction comes from completing a project and knowing nothing more could be done to for the installation to look any better. The sheets align, the fixings are uniform and painted and the sheets are perfectly flat. Just 4 simple tasks that performed incorrectly will turn the most amazing design and manufacture into an eyesore.

No matter where I am, I'm constantly looking at signs for inspiration, for methods of installation, for the style of manufacture and quality of installation. When it comes to aluminium composite material or ACM as we know it, there are rules to abide by when installing, which depends on the method of fixing. I have worked with many installers over the years and knowing a good one from a bad one is as simple as watching one fix a screw. You would think that holding the screw up against the ACM and pulling the trigger of the impact driver is the simplest of tasks anyone can do. But no. There is an art to fixing a screw and not all installers have learned it. Over the years I have contracted to many sign companies and sent out to sites where sign sheets installed by another contractor have come loose. Placing the Philips head into the screw and giving the screw a quick turn instantly tells me if the contractor was an experienced one or not. The screw is all the way into the metal behind the sheet and the screw is spinning. The sheet is also dented around the fixing where the fixing has been over tightened and there are dents made from the impact driver slipping off the head of the screw and hitting the sheet.

The fixings are also randomly placed instead of measured and uniform and none of the screws painted to match the sign. This is not happening on just one screw, but all of them and this was not the work of an experienced sign installer or someone who took pride in their work.

Flapping sheets have the potential to be fatal and I've heard many stories over the years of signs landing on cars and hitting people as they fall. One of the most memorable stories was about an installer who was installing a sky sign on the side of a 60 story building when he ran out of fixings half way through installing a sheet panel. He raised the lift to go and get some more fixings and when he returned, the panel was gone. My family and I have lived in the same house for over 5 years now. It's not often that businesses change hands or update their signage in our area and I'm a few streets away from a busy intersection where a business resides that has just updated their signs. The business has a corner site and a significant amount of advertising space on the 2-storey property. We drive past the site multiple times per day and can't help but notice the signs installed. The signs are mainly composed of ACM sheets which clad the entire fascia of the building and they are black in colour. Rule number one of installing ACM sheets. The darker the sign, the larger the expansion joint. ACM expands just like any metal when heated. The expansion could be up to and over 5mm per sheet depending on the colour and sheet size.

I have been known to install coloured ACM sheets with gaps so large you can see the white wall between the gaps. I have then silicone the gaps to allow the sheets to expand without hitting each other. If the sheets hit each other they will balloon out from the face of the building, creating a pillow effect. Rule number two when installing ACM sheets. Never over-tighten the fixings. When installing large sheets into brick or concrete, nylon anchors are the preferred fixing to use. A nylon anchor is a nail with a nylon surround that expands as the nails driven into the surround. It then expands into the hole and secures the sheet. I've seen installers hit the nylon anchors like they are a hammer-hand driving a spike into a rail line, using so much force that they actually force the anchor head into the ACM. This again creates a pillow effect but not just when heated. The dents are now in the sheet permanently. So, you can understand my frustration when I pass the store multiple times per day and watch as the sheets expand in the sunlight to make the sign look like a poorly made bed as the sheets warp and twist in the mid-day heat. The sheets are so buckled that fixings are actually being pulled out of the wall and I'm not 100% confident that the sheet will stay in place flapping in the wind for too long. It makes me feel like stopping the van and getting my tools out to remove and correctly reinstall the entire signs for them just so I don't have to look at it for the next 5 years.

There is a quote by Red Adair that rings true in all of this. "If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur"!

Puting a dollar value on rectifying the issues with the signage of painting the fixings, attaching the sheet, access hire and time on site at a minium will be around $300. This will have significant impact on the gross profit for the return visit. Not to mention your reputation as a quality sign company. As a sign company, you can have the best sales people who break monthly records, the best graphic designers that produce award-winning designs, the best manufacturers that produce a product of the highest quality but none of this means anything if your installer can't fix a fixing or hasn't knowledge of thermodynamics. The sign installer is the last link in the chain and if you have the wrong one it can undo all the hard work of every person along the line and potentially cost you future business if you are a sign company. If you are a business owner, a poorly installed sign to your premises will most definitely ruin the first impression for your client, and you never get a second chance to make a great first impression. If you need the services of a trusted sign maker and installer with the experience to overcome any obstacle then call Vibe Signs. We guarantee satisfaction with our work. Click on the below banner to head to our contact page.

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