Why should you choose artificial cladding over good old timber?
When looking at cladding the outside of your home, timber has, for many hundreds of years, been the material of choice in the North Americas and Scandinavia. In places like this, where timber is plentiful, it continues to be the primary material for building and cladding homes. If timber was and continues to be so popular and versatile as a building material, why choose anything other than timber? Surely, if artificial wood is just trying to be like timber, it would be better to choose the real thing over a plastic-based alternative?
The truth is our love affair with timber is somewhat one-sided. We love the look of wood when first installed, like the tree that we cut down and put in our living rooms each Christmas, it gives us a feeling of being closer to nature. However, there are many drawbacks in choosing timber, in this article we will unpack those a little and investigate why you should choose artificial wood cladding over timber.
What Is Artificial Timber Cladding?
Artificial timber cladding is cladding made from a composite material, a combination of wood and plastic. Using our expertise in the creation of high-performing composite decking, we have taken this forward to engineer a cladding product which stands up to the toughest tests in resilience, water-resistance, fade resistance and stain resistance. Making a tough material is only half of the battle, making artificial wood cladding which is both durable and beautiful has been the obsessive vision of the engineers at NeoTimber®.
What’s Wrong With Timber Cladding?
Anyone who has watched any of the aspirational ‘design-your-own-home’ shows on TV will be more than aware of the aesthetic benefits of adding cladding to the outside of your home. Whether a brise-soleil, Scandi-style or a more modern affair cladding is definitely, ‘on-trend.’ The trouble is, the people who feature in these shows invariably have six-figure budgets and so they can choose the very best in treated, kiln-dried cedar to clad their homes. Notwithstanding, all timber cladding requires regular treatment at no insignificant cost and will eventually fade, warp and rot if left long enough.
Why Do We Need Artificial Wood Cladding?
Since timber cladding is so popular in North America, many hours have been committed to investigating ways to make an alternative cladding material which is more durable than timber. In the pursuit of this, in both the decking and cladding market, cheap plastic materials appeared some 20 years ago. The trouble with plastic is that despite its hardy weatherproof properties, it just looks like plastic. It has a shine and a false look about it which means it could never really replace timber.
Add A Dash Of Timber
To make a cake you need the right quantities of flour, eggs and sugar to get the right mix. Similarly, with artificial wood cladding, our engineers experimented with adding timber fibres into the mix with the plastic to get just right ratio. Turns out 60% timber, 30% plastic and 10% bonding agent gives you the all the right ingredients. This combination of timber and plastic gives the look of wood with the water-resistant qualities of plastic, giving you the best of both worlds. The fact that we can achieve all this and still produce stunning, sanded, woodgrain or slatted cladding is, the icing on the cake.
The Icing On The Cake
Our traditional cladding boards are designed to weather naturally for a more ‘lived-in’ look. However, to better protect our artificial wood cladding, in addition to our traditional composite cladding, we have developed our capped composite cladding range. Designed as a thin layer to coat and shield the organic properties in artificial wood cladding, this polymer shell cocoons the boards and protects them from the wet and cold. Thin enough to allow the texture and moulding of the timber wood grain to show through, it’s timber with a coat! Designed with enhanced UV inhibitors, our Deluxe and Slatted ranges resist fading and are 100% stain resistant.
If you would like to find out more about our artificial wood cladding and to see how it would look on your home, visit our cladding colour visualiser. Once you’ve seen and imagined how our gorgeous cladding will look get your hands on the real thing by ordering your free composite cladding sample pack. You’ll be amazed by the beauty of the stunning NeoTimber® cladding range!
Need Further Support or Advice?
If you’ve still got questions that have not been answered here, or you would like additional advice,
support or assistance then please give one of our friendly experts a call and we’ll be happy to help.
Just give us a call on 01509 323 170.