Angle Beads: A Quick Guide
Angle beads form part of an external render system and play several roles, from ensuring a finished aesthetic appearance to helping protect the render from damage such as staining and cracking. Greengate's, your local builders merchant, supply a range of angle bead products and here is a quick guide to the different types.
Bellcast Beads
Also referred to as 'drip beads', this type is designed to create an angled lip at the base of a rendered wall, as well as above windows and apertures. Bellcast beads prevent damp from damaging render by allowing water that runs down the render's face to drip safely off.
Angle Beads
Commonly called 'corner' or 'quoin' beads, angle beads are designed for use on corners and returns of external rendered elevations. Angle beads strongly reinforce a render system, ensuring that the render edges remain sharp and reducing any impact damage. The need to manually form corners while on site is eliminated and the angle beads act as an accurate guide to depth during render application. The nose of these beads creates straight, crisp and aesthetically-pleasing lines in the render finish.
Stop Beads
When used up against window/door frames, copings, claddings, building fabrics and soffits, stop beads create an attractive square-finished edge for external render systems. They can also be used to create decorative feature panels within the render itself. To prevent any water ingress, a silicone sealant is usually applied along the return or back edge of the stop bead.
Expansion Bead
Expansion beads are more commonly known as 'movement joints' and are especially useful in reducing the risk of render cracking in large surface areas. They are also helpful in reducing the risk of cracking in areas where different building materials or substrates join up. Differential movement at the junctions of different substrates causes cracking and movement joints help to eliminate this problem.
Discover the full range of angle beads available from Greengate's on our website.