Your house wall is freshly painted, the facade radiates a brilliant shine-but what's that? Highly visible vertical streaks spoiling the appearance. It's obvious to the experts that those are snail trails! Although this initially sounds like a problem exclusive to gardeners, it is in fact a common issue for nearly all architectural coatings. These "snail trails" typically emerge after the first bout of rain hits the building wall. The rain washes water-soluble components, such as additives or emulsifiers, out of the paint. These washed-out materials run down the wall, leaving behind unsightly streaks, also known as snail trails. To date, facade paint manufacturers have tried to prevent snail trails by carefully selecting the ingredients for their formulation. Some dispersing agents and binders feature a significantly reduced tendency towards snail trails, although this can cause new problems. The new significantly restricted choice of ingredients means that formulators need to carefully coordinate the components-and pay more for these than for the standard versions.
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