Composite Cladding: The Benefits For Your Garden Room
How do you build a garden room that needs next to no maintenance?
If you want additional living space in your garden, then chances are you want an outhouse that doesn’t need regular maintenance. This low maintenance material might be the best external finisher for you to include in your garden room project.
This new synthetic material is being used widely in the building industry, and it is composite cladding
What materials make composite cladding?
Composite cladding is a synthetic alternative to traditional timber. This material is created using a mixture of recycled wood and polymers.
Mixing these two materials creates durable, low maintenance and long-lasting products that are perfect when used to finish a garden room.
The other benefit of composite cladding is that it comes in a wide variety of colours, guaranteeing nearly no fading from ultraviolet light. Ensuring your garden room looks new for decades.
Whereas wood cladding generally requires treatment every 6-12 months to keep its natural colour.
What happens when you don’t treat traditional timber cladding? Depending on the wood, it can rot and deteriorate.
Although, premium cladding woods such as cedar tend to have a natural silvering effect when untreated and last a long time.
Compare the two?
What is better? “Composite cladding” vs “Traditional wood cladding.”
Which cladding material do you think would be better to finish your garden room?
Composite can’t silver like woods such as cedar & redwood, which can appeal to people who like a natural wood finish.
However, composite quality generally improves year on year, offering incredibly natural finishes.
Wood cladding does require treatment. If you finish a garden room with traditional wood cladding, you will need to remember to treat it annually.
If you decide to leave it, water can penetrate many kinds of wood and cause the wood to rot. This is a common issue, and this will also cause dampness internally.
Composite, on the other hand, does not have this problem. Most providers offer lengthy guarantees on their products as they are sure of the quality.
As composite is a manufactured material, we see the quality constantly improve. This means it is becoming a staple in the building industry, and once the natural colour effects are perfected, it will most likely become the premium material over wood.
As composite cladding does not rot or deteriorate like wood, it is better than traditional timber.
However, with the above being said, we still believe that cedar is a go-to cladding material for garden rooms, as it is naturally resistant to moisture, insect infestation and rot.
A properly finished and high-quality cedar can last for decades.
Although good-quality cedar cladding is a costly material, you will need to ensure you have a reasonable budget for your garden room.
So what does My Outhouse offer?
We only offer the highest quality finishes, and that is why we will only provide cedar or composite cladding to our clients when constructing a garden room.
Our verdict when comparing “Composite cladding” vs “Traditional wood cladding.”
We feel composite is the go-to material for cladding and feel there is a big enough variety of colours to compete with natural woods.
If you saw our composite walnut or oak garden rooms, you would struggle to distinguish between them and natural timbers. LINK OAK AND WALNUT TO PRODUCT PAGES.
Composite is a material that is being developed regularly, and we feel that it won’t be long until most garden room suppliers are offering composite cladding over traditional timber.
Maintain your wood, or choose composite cladding for your garden room.
Before you choose to buy a garden room, you need to decide whether you want a cladding that will need maintenance vs something like composite cladding.
It sounds like something simple. It is maintaining a garden room. How hard can it be?
Well, if you are the type of person that paints their fence panels every year, you should find it easy.
But if you are like a large chunk of the country and leave their fences for years on end, then composite cladding is probably the better choice of cladding to benefit your garden room.
A fence panel only costs £30 to replace, whereas cladding could cost you 5x that amount. And that is for a single piece!
You also need to know that if wood penetrates the cladding, it could also affect the main structure. Most outhouses are built with OSB 3 boarding below the surface, and although it does fend off dampness, it could get ruined in a very wet winter, meaning you not only need to change some cladding but also structural elements.
Just make sure you do your research on the different types of cladding and decide whether you are that person who will be in the garden painting their garden room once or twice a year. PICTURE OF WOOD TREATMENT – GARDEN ROOM PAINTING.
Composite cladding and the future
One of the biggest reasons composite cladding is so popular is the choice of colours.
Of course, you can paint wood, but will it have that perfect finish composite offers.
That finish that doesn’t change in look and can last 20+ years.
Probably not.
Composite is also getting better, and the choices are huge. A few years ago, there was a point where you could only get composite from a few suppliers; however, now everyone sells it.
Rather than just buying composite cladding, we can now choose the best quality in the market, rather than just what is available due to how new the material is.
Another huge benefit of modern composites over timber is that it is child friendly.
I have often heard that children have got splinters from timber, especially from wood decking and cladding materials.
Composite cladding does not splinter, so it is safe for children.
Is splintering really a concern?
How many people have children? And, how many of these children will be running around this garden room in the summer?
Like kids do, they might decide to try and climb on the roof or hide behind it.
At least you have one less worry about, like timber, especially after it has aged, will soften, and it does release splinters.
When you fit composite cladding onto your garden room, you can be sure that you will not need to worry about splinters.
Even if the composite has aged, you won’t need to worry.
Here is a short list of reasons to buy a garden room that has composite cladding:
- It doesn’t age
- it is waterproof
- it does not rot
- Composite does not warp or fade
- It does not require painting or treating
It sounds pretty perfect!
Insulation benefits of composite garden rooms
Composite does not need breathing space like timber, and as it does not need airflow, you can insulate it to the max.
Ensure you have breathing space for your internal materials and ensure vents are correctly installed to let air flow around the internal structure.
Once your main structure is erected, you will generally have insulation within the timbers that create the main walls of your garden room, and with normal timber cladding, this will be the limit of what you can insulate.
However, with composite, as long as you leave some space between the outer layer of insulation and your main structure, you can put another layer of insulation against the composite with no worry of decay.
This is because composite cladding does not need to breathe.
It is so durable and weather resistant; it can even be left in a puddle of water without concern for decay and rot.
How is composite cladding fitted to a garden room?
Composite cladding is fitted with hidden brackets on joists that should be placed every 400mm across the structure to ensure structural soundness.
The composite cladding is then fitted to the brackets with screws. Don’t worry; the screws are not visible once the cladding is fitted.
Fitting composite cladding to a garden room is very simple, but it does require precision when making cuts. This needs to be done by someone with the correct tools and knowledge of carpentry to ensure the finish is perfect.
Conclusion: Do you buy a composite garden room?
Whether or not you want a real wood garden room, we would suggest that you consider composite cladding for your Outhouse.
It has many benefits, and with the younger generation of buyer’s entering the market, it will be a good investment choice as they will be impressed.
Composite is here for the long-term.
But please ensure you use responsible companies to build your garden room. We buy our composite cladding from reliable suppliers that use 100% recycled materials to create high-quality composite claddings for our garden rooms.