Composite Cladding

No. That is most of the reason people choose it. Composite boards are wood fibre bound in polymer, so there is nothing to feed, no grain to open up and nothing to reseal each spring. Washing it down occasionally is the whole maintenance schedule.

It will settle. Most composite lightens a little over the first few months of UV exposure and then stays where it is — that initial change is normal and is not a fault. Capped boards, which carry a bonded outer skin, hold their colour and resist staining noticeably better than uncapped ones.

Because of that settling, it is worth ordering the whole job in one go so everything weathers together, and keeping a couple of spare boards from the same batch.

Yes, mostly along its length and mostly with temperature. That is why fixing clips and expansion gaps at the ends of boards are not optional — a run laid tight to a wall in March will find nowhere to go in July. Follow the gap specified for the board and use the matching clip system rather than face-screwing it down.

Closer than timber decking. Around 300mm centres is a common figure for a domestic deck laid square, and closer again if the boards run diagonally, because the effective span between supports is longer. Under-supporting composite makes it feel bouncy and is very difficult to correct afterwards.

Yes, and the colours are matched across the ranges, so a deck and the cladding behind it can be specified as one. Worth checking with us that they are from the same generation of board before ordering, because the surface texture differs between them.