Environmentally-Friendly Homes

September 2nd, 2011

8 Reasons why Vinyl Cladding is a Green Choice for the Home

Vinyl was first developed in the 1920′s, and quickly became a common component in numerous products, including wall cladding. Vinyl has since emerged as the world’s second most used plastic, but unlike its counterparts, vinyl has several environmentally-friendly features.

Here’s a list of eight reasons why vinyl cladding is a wise choice for your home and the environment:

1. Environmentally Sustainable
The main building block composing vinyl is Chlorine, which is developed from salt. This makes up just under 60% of vinyl’s chemical structure, and is a sustainable and cost-effective product.

2. Less Energy During Manufacturing
Vinyl cladding manufacturing consumes less than half of the energy necessary to produce bricks and mortar. Vinyl cladding also uses less fuel in transportation since it’s much lighter than bricks and mortar.

3. Solid Foam Insulated
Prestige Exteriors’ Duratuff Select Vinyl Cladding comes with pre-installed solid foam insulation backing. This CFC-free high-rating insulation helps reduce your heating and cooling energy bill, saving money and having less impact on the environment.

4. Durable
In addition to the environmental credentials, vinyl cladding is very durable, meaning it spends more time on your house and less in a landfill. We are so confident in Duratuff Select vinyl wall cladding that a lifetime guarantee is offered.

5. Reduced Impact Maintenance
Unlike other common products on the market, vinyl cladding never requires painting, which not only saves you time and money on labour costs, but avoids the environmental damage from continuous painting. In addition, only a mild soap and water is required for cleaning which means that you are not responsible for releasing harmful chemicals into the environment.

6. Recyclable
Recyclability is a wonderful factor in vinyl’s sustainability. In America, more than 1 billion pounds of vinyl was recycled in the last year. In addition, much of the waste from manufacturing can be recycled straight back into the manufacturing process.

7. Less Waste during Installation
In comparison to other types of exterior cladding and exterior materials, the installation of vinyl siding generates very little waste.

8. Releases fewer toxic chemicals than other exterior cladding throughout the life-cycle
Vinyl cladding emits significantly lower levels of toxic chemicals, including mercury and silver, into the environment, compared to other types of exterior cladding.

Protecting the future of our planet and your home.

Because protecting the environment for a sustainable future continues to become a focus in society, vinyl cladding delivers many recognised benefits which make it a green choice for your home.

Prestige Exteriors is a leading supplier of vinyl cladding in Queensland. We choose to install only Duratuff Select vinyl wall cladding, which comes with a 50 year transferable manufacturer’s warranty! We clad directly over wood or fibro to leave a beautiful, colourfast and lasting impression. Available in 13 colours.

Discover more about Prestige Exteriors vinyl cladding now, or contact us today.

Looking for a great alternative to painting for your home? For Brisbane Wall Cladding & Brisbane Vinyl House Cladding, call Prestige Exteriors today or visit http://www.prestigeexteriors.com.au/

Sphere: Related Content

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments

The Traditional Queenslander Home

August 30th, 2011

To some eyes, Queensland’s familiar wood and tin homes gave Brisbane, and other Queensland cities and rural areas, a particular temporary, insubstantial air. Known as 'A Queenslander’, they seemed so much less solid and permanent than houses built using brick or stone. Many Queensland houses were placed high in the air on tall stumps, as the supporting piers were always called, and seemed likely to simply fly away.

The Queensland home was relatively cost-effective when trees were plentiful, easy to transport, and, in a relatively calm climate, single skin, unlined walls were all that were thought to be necessary to protect dwellers~people~the dwellers within} from the cold. Stout corrugated iron roofs stood up to torrential tropical rain and was re-usable if taken off by cyclonic winds.

The verandahs sheltered people from the burning sun and also caught any breeze that may have been passing in the steamy summers. Coverings outside window openings meant that windows did not have to be quickly shut when humidity brought rain. Clever little revolving tin cylinders on the roofs pulled out hot air that filled ceiling spaces through decorative fretwork openings.

Although timber isn’t a particularly effective insulator for either heat or cold, air was able to flow down the long central hallways in the typical Queensland house and also across the house from an open window on one side through open doors to the open window on the opposite side. Some exteriors were painted, others were simply oiled. Some verandahs were built with elaborate and expensive iron lace; others simply with timber frames and carved timber decoration in pediments over front stairs.

Despite the impression of apparent impermanence, the Queensland house has survived since its first appearance in the mid-nineteenth century. However, it has evolved. The simple two-room or four-room cottage has given way to much larger, sprawling dwellings. The pattern of the Queenslander house can be translated into the early forms of kit-set houses.

Many were created by companies in Brisbane and transported long distances as flat-packs on trains. Collections of verandahs, tongue and groove boards for walls and sheets of corrugated iron for roofs were available at the destination for assembling. The public housing movement that produced workers homes adapted the materials to differing shapes and sizes suitable for lower-cost housing.

After the war, the Queenslander seemed out of date in a world of modem architecture. Brick houses, American ranch style residences and other imported styles began to populate new suburbs. However, Brisbane is a hilly city and even modem designs often adapted the idea of stumps so that houses could be close to the ground near the top of a rising allotment and high where the ground angled away. In the late twentieth century, the old materials, tin and timber, were given new currency by innovative architects to create distinctly modem, light and airy Queensland homes.

In the 1970s and 1980s, when a drift back towards the inner suburbs attracted the attention of a new generation, old Queenslanders were discovered by younger owners. They painted them lovingly and added various renovations to bring an old favourite into the modem era.

However they originated, whether from sugar planters houses in the West Indies, bungalows in India or high houses in Malaysia, the Queenslander still distinguishes Brisbane from other Australian capital cities.

Looking for a great alternative to paint for your Queenslander? For Wall Cladding Brisbane & Vinyl House Cladding Brisbane, contact Prestige Exteriors today: http://www.prestigeexteriors.com.au/

Sphere: Related Content

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments