External Cladding

uPVC Plastic Cladding

Introduction

Why clad your house? Cladding can serve to cure practical issues with the structure of a house or a commercial building it can be used to simply cover and decorate old walls or it can be used to cure issues such as damp or overheating in summer with either the use of a light colour to reflect heat or in a combination of cladding and insulation. When installed with a breathable membrane cladding can prevent the ingress of rainwater or it can reduce or cure problems caused by damp caused by cold materials in the structure of the house making contact with warmer areas of the structure.

Cladding can be installed externally or internally. Cladding is not a structural part of the building but it can be used to protect the structure. Great effect can be achieved by adding panels of cladding to the structure or by completely covering the whole structure. The use of PVC cladding reduces the need for maintenance painting staining and the use of wood preservatives colours hold fast for many years on most of the systems available but the foiled products are likely to give the longest life spans.

Attractive, Easy to Clean, Easy To Install, and it Last For Years.

Specifications

Cladding planks vary from 100mm up to 333mm with 150mm being the most popular size used. Nearly all the systems are 16mm thick when installed and they come with corners joiners and edge trims that designed at 16mm to take the cladding. The cladding sizes quoted here are all the actual coverage sizes so the actual size of the boards will be bigger to account for the overlap.

Fire Rating

They are different types of PVC cladding available and they have different qualities solid PVC cladding has a class 1Y fire rating. Put simply flames do not tend to spread when the cladding is exposed to fire it will tend to char and drop off. Some thought should be given to the materials used behind the cladding as these would also need to be fire protected sprayed painted or covered to really benefit from PVC claddings low spread of flame and if the product is not on solid walls of if the cladding meets cavities fire breaks should be used to meet current building regulations. Some properties would also be unable to use this cladding system if it is within 1m of a boundary which is sometimes found during roof loft conversions on dormers which are less than 1m from a neighbour. If your project is a new build or a renovation it's a good idea to have a talk with your building inspector if you have any doubts. Where possible the full fire ratings have been added to the relevant product pages. The cladding has now been used on domestic properties for more than 30 years so it's a fairly well-tested product in situ. The colour used has no effect on the fire rating they are all classed the same. BBA BSI certificates vary from product to product so you can find more information where it is available from the product information pages. Regulations are constantly changing and these rules do vary in Northern Ireland Scotland Wales and England Different types or buildings i.e taller buildings will have different requirements.

Solid cladding systems are suitable for most homes and they can also be used as soffits to match in with any wall cladding. Some systems can be easily two-toned if required.

Installation

Installation is fairly quick and easy once the structure of the building has been prepared we recommend the use of a breathable membrane behind the cladding to catch any stray rain caused by wind pressure whilst still allowing the timber support structure to breathe and moisture to escape. Consideration must be made for expansion especially on south-facing walls of the property special attention needs to be given to maintaining airflow behind the cladding to prevent excessive expansion of darker coloured boards. Boards should be cut short inside the trims to allow for expansion.

Colours

As a decorative product cladding now comes in many colours which can be used to highlight areas of the building as design features. Colours can be plain or with the foiled products, the PVC cladding system can also be used to look like oak white and black ash or mahogany Colour Options Read More

Textured Embossed External Cladding Systems

Texture

Cladding is now available in everything from a plain gloss finish to wood effect embossed finishes with grained wood effect textured finish new additions include a matte finish which is a closer match the standard powder coated aluminium products. Read More

Simply choose between hollow or solid external cladding. Available in different sizes and colours. Solid Cladding is the economic choice but installed well and looked after it should last for years. Solid Cladding will take the knocks, it looks shiny once installed and it's tough, recommended if you have children in the area. Normal colours include white cream oak mahogany rosewood anthracite grey and some colours are available in an embossed finish. Kavex cladding is also in stock. Read More

Guarantees

Guarantees are offered by the manufacturers but these do vary and they all come with different conditions. Some installers do quote for cladding with a hollow cladding system please note some of these hollow systems are not suitable for use as wall cladding. Most installers only use solid varieties of cladding.

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