Exterior cladding like melamine MDF

[TimW]

I am looking at some flats, not for me but for a relative to buy. Saw a newly built and fairly luxury block today and out on the balcony up close to the white panels that covered the entire outside of the eight floors they appeared to be melamine faced MDF, with a slightly rough sawn edge. But they can't be? can they? What is this strange material? I was beginning to scratch a bit with a thumbnail but the salesman was right there so I had to stop. It looks great from a distance, close up it looks like the kind of panels you would use in a public toilet.

The real question is,- Is this a durable material that I know nothing about? Presumably not a disastrous failure of specification - you wouldn't want to put scaffolding up and replace it very often. How is it going to wear and age?

Tim W

[Andrew]

Could it be this stuff ?

[Andrew]

And more of the same

[alan_m]

Would it be applied as cladding on an eight floor building?

The Trespa cladding shown in the pictures looks like the stuff to be removed from a building in my area because of the fire risk.

[Animal]

I've also seen 'vinyl' sheet material that's vinyl on mdf or chipboard. I wouldn't use it outdoors, especially on a high rise building. Without knowing what you have, what specs it meets or what hazard assessments have been done I'd suspect it would need to be removed, possibly leaving something horrid to look at.

[jim.gm4dhj]

look for central heating expansion blow of stains what a mess...it should be against the law to clad with such material.....but Bara shell looks nice and doesn't stain and is self cleaning...

[alan_m]

Just down the road from where I live there is number of fairly new builds. They have used some very large decorative cladding panels on the front of the buildings that have an embossed flower type design. Probably some designers bright idea of pargeting but implemented in some plastic sheeting material. I'm not saying they are unsafe but they really look cheap and ugly. The fact that they have been put on every look-alike house/flat just draws your eye in and you cannot miss them :)

[TimW]

That would be the stuff, ta. I see it literally is Formica. Can't help thinking that it will look like rubbish in 20 years time. And poss toxic if it burns.

Tim W

[Sargan]

They have been using Vinyl siding on house construction for decades in Canada & US .... it does its job, avoids need to paint ... but not particularly nice looking.