Composite Wall Cladding Vs Timber

Natural, untreated timber is a beautiful material. Unfortunately, it is not suitable for using as a building material for cladding because as soon as it is felled, a tree starts to die, unless coated in some form of preservative. The resulting effect is that of something which looks nothing like timber. But wood covered in paint, varnish, resin or creosote. Composite wall cladding however, looks like wood. It could be argued that composite wall cladding looks more like wood than wood because by the time you’ve daubed it in paint, your cladding doesn’t look much like wood anyway.

Unlike timber, composite wall cladding is designed to actively repel and resist moisture absorption. Composite wall cladding is made from a combination of timber fibres and recycled plastic. The plastic polymers coat the timber fibres protecting them against the warping and rotting inherent with timber. Available with the composite wall cladding are a whole host of fixing solutions, including composite joists. These are hollow but strong and can be used in place of timber battens to give you a sturdy subframe onto which you can attach your composite wall cladding.

Install timber cladding and you are guaranteed only one thing. Permanent maintenance. Repainting is quite therapeutic but when you eventually need to sand back your timber to start over, it’s not as easy sanding cladding as decking. Standing on a ladder while rubbing away with a sanding block to get into all of those grooves is too much like hard work. Composite wall cladding never needs sanding, ever. No sanding, no painting, no treating or varnishing. Give it a little TLC every spring and autumn just to spruce it up and it is guaranteed for 25 years. Yes, that’s right, 25 years! So, if you’re just settling into your new home with a new-born, that child will have left university by the time you have to start thinking about replacing your cladding! One less thing to worry about!