Where Our Coatings Are Used
Use Cases
Structural Hardware
Joist hangers, beam connectors, anchor bolts, foundation hardware, post bases, and hold-downs that need long corrosion life and code-compliant performance over the service life of the building.
HVAC and Mechanical Systems
Duct hangers, damper hardware, equipment supports, vibration isolators, and rooftop equipment fasteners that face condensation, temperature cycling, and treated water exposure.
Electrical Infrastructure
Bus bar hardware, grounding rods and connectors, bonding straps, panel mounting hardware, conduit fittings, and raceway supports where both corrosion resistance and electrical conductivity matter.
Fire and Life Safety Systems
Sprinkler pipe hangers, valve hardware, alarm and pull-station hardware, and fire-rated penetration components that often carry UL listings and long-term reliability requirements.
Plumbing and Piping
Pipe hangers, valve trim, fittings, isolation hardware, and supply-line bracketry exposed to water, humidity, and assembly-line stresses.
What These Finishes Do
Key Benefits
Corrosion Resistance
For interior, envelope, and exposed hardware against moisture, condensation, treated water, and ambient industrial environments over decade-plus service lives.
Electrical Conductivity and Safety Grounding
Uniform plating thickness on bus bar hardware, grounding rods, and bonding components for consistent electrical performance and code-compliant grounding paths.
Code and Listing Compliance
Finishes that meet the IBC, UL, NFPA, and ASTM specifications that fire safety, electrical, and structural hardware are required to satisfy.
Galvanic Compatibility
Process selection that avoids dissimilar-metal corrosion problems where steel, aluminum, copper, and stainless components meet in building assemblies.
Long Service Life
Plating chemistries built for the 30-plus-year design life that building hardware is expected to deliver, with salt-spray performance well beyond commodity specifications.
Environmental Compliance
Trivalent chromium passivation and fully hexavalent-chromium-free finishes that meet RoHS, REACH, and the sustainability criteria used in LEED and other green-building rating systems.
Protective Coatings for Building Infrastructure
The hardware that holds a building together rarely gets a second look once it’s installed. The joist hangers in the ceiling, the conduit fittings behind the walls, the bus bar bolts in the electrical room — they have to do their job for the design life of the building, in environments that range from controlled office space to humid mechanical rooms to fully exposed rooftop mechanical decks. The plating chosen for each of those components is the part that quietly determines whether the building still works in year 30.
CMC supplies the protective finishes that building product manufacturers specify when long service life, code compliance, and proven track record matter. Our process menu covers the full range of building-infrastructure needs: zinc and zinc-nickel for structural and HVAC hardware that has to outlast warranty periods; tin and electroless nickel for electrical components where conductivity and uniform coverage are non-negotiable; and phosphate and e-coat as durable pre-treatments for the painted finishes that face the building envelope. We run trivalent chromium passivation, fully hexavalent-chromium-free chemistries, and the salt-spray performance levels that the IBC, UL, NFPA, and ASTM standards governing this industry call for.
Across four facilities and 17 processing lines, we have the volume to support manufactured-housing programs, the precision to handle low-volume specialty hardware, and the engineering depth to recommend the right finish before a sample ever goes on a line. Send us a print or a specification and we’ll match the right process to your part, the environment it will live in, and the standard you need to meet.
Finishes we most often recommend for building infrastructure
Specifying a finish for a building product?
Send us a drawing, a specification, or a part description. We’ll recommend the right finish for the environment the hardware will live in, the codes it has to meet, and the service life your customers expect.