Finishing the balcony with plastic panels

Before you go to purchase plastic panels for finishing your balcony, prepare all the necessary tools and materials. It depends on such trifles how quickly you can handle the repair and how much money you spend.

So, in order to make conceived repairs on the balcony, one cannot do without the following tools and accessories:

• hacksaw or clerical construction knife;
• level, square and ruler;
• drills with a drill;
• construction stapler, screwdriver or screwdriver with screws;
• electrical tester (to check the network voltage).

There are a lot of building materials on the market today: wooden lining, PVC panels, sandwich panels, MDF panels, moisture resistant gypsum board, and a number of other materials, but most of the time to install correctly most of them is not easy, and only by experienced professionals.

And the cost of building materials, as a rule, is quite high. If you give advice to most ordinary owners who know how to handle the tool and carefully spend money, then for the interior decoration of the balcony the right choice will be PVC panels.

Simply put, this material is called plastic. For a loggia or a balcony, such decoration can be a real decoration, and it is even more important if it is decided to increase the area of ​​the room at the expense of the balcony. Beautiful and high-quality plastic finishing of the balcony is a very common phenomenon, and a number of factors contribute to this.

1. Availability. First of all, the finishing of the balcony with plastic panels will be quite affordable for the average family.
2. Easy installation. The second factor, which is of no less importance, can be called a relatively affordable and simple installation of panels, which can be performed independently. Moreover, when installing by hand, you have the opportunity in the future easy dismantling, if the need arises, or to perform a fragmentary repair of one of the coating sections.
3. Durability. Plastic panels have a long service life, they are guaranteed to be used and 25, and even 50 years. Plastic panels are environmentally neutral materials, are not subject to the process of decay, are not afraid of the effects of any aggressive detergents or accidental contact with a chemical substance on their surface.
4. Quality. Plastic refers to high-quality materials: it will not burn out, if it will be exposed to direct sunlight for a long time, which means that it will always be possible to restore some finishing area and no difference in tone at all. this will not be observed.
5. Practicality. Despite the fact that the wall covering looks like a monolithic material, there are gaps for ventilation in it, and this fact does not allow the fungus or mold to get under it.
6. Cellular structure. Due to the cellular structure of the panels, increased sound insulation and heat insulation are provided. In addition, the product is antistatic and therefore does not attract dust to its surface.

The material, which would have only the merits, and did not have a single drawback, has not yet been invented (if it is at all possible). PVC panels for balcony decoration are also not a universal option.

1. Mechanical damage. Instability to mechanical stress is the main and indisputable minus of the plastic coating. If a panel is accidentally hit with something hard or sharp, it will easily burst. In addition to this, it will not withstand a relatively small but point pressure - in this place the material outside is deformed. In such cases, the situation can be corrected only by a complete replacement of the damaged panel.
2. Toxic. If there is a fire inside a room decorated with this material, then molten plastic will fill the room with toxic substances, although it is precisely this disadvantage that the vast majority of materials today possess.
3. From a psychological point of view. Human psychology is so arranged that it is considered to be, since the material is so inexpensive, it will not be prestigious to use it when it comes to elite repair in the room.

• CostYou can often come up with statements such as the fact that good is cheap does not happen, but this does not mean at all that the most expensive material should be chosen for finishing. The choice should always be reasonable.
• Quality. Unfortunately, there are manufacturers who treat their work in bad faith. They can, for example, overdo it in the composition with the content of chalk in it, and then the panel will turn out to be stiff, and if you try to do this, it will simply burst.
• Elasticity. Try to press a finger on the surface of the plastic. Dent easily formed and does not pass - the material is too thin and is not suitable for finishing the balcony. The plastic of the quality required in this case must be firm and elastic, only in this case its service life will be sufficiently long.

• Stiffening rib. Pay attention to the edges of internal stiffness. We need to take the bar and squeeze it from the butt with your fingers. In the event that, under the influence of your fingers, the internal edges of the panel are broken, and the bar is pressed in, then this is a real marriage. If the product is made with high quality, then this will not happen, only slight deformation of the ribs is allowed.
• Dimensions.The slats are different in length and width, and this also affects the cost of the product. A thicker plank can cost much less because it is narrower and shorter than a thinner plank.
• Front side. If manufacturers in the manufacture of panels were not busy with quality, but with savings, and the front side turned out to be too thin, then when inspecting the plank at an angle you will see emerging ribs of stiffness, and this is also a clear defect.

• Colour. PVC panels are available in a wide variety of colors and sizes. The most practical are panels of light shades, as they visually increase the close space of the loggia or balcony. Transparent panels for interior decoration are not suitable, but sometimes they are used instead of window glass.

It is better to refuse colorful and dark slats, but a panel with an image will look attractive, creating an amazing design on the balcony that will fit any setting.

Work on finishing the balcony with the use of PVC panels - the occupation is quite simple. Guided by this step-by-step instruction and having the desire, such work can be made available to any owner. All work is divided into certain stages:

• Fixing with glue. This method of finishing, when the plastic panel is mounted directly on the balcony wall, is resorted to if they want to save a useful area. Yes, some people do just that, but this method has a lot of flaws, and therefore experts will never advise it to you. There are many reasons for this: there is no need to talk about the insulation of the room in this case; it is possible to glue the panels only on a completely flat wall, which means that preliminary preparation will be required; after the entire panel has been planted on glue, as it is provided for with this method of installation, it will not be possible to repair any fragment of the surface in the future.

Carefully look through the balcony walls across their surface. We are looking for visible cracks and defects that we safely dispose of. The best way to use the grinder in this case is to widen the crack and completely clean it, and then seal the waterproof putty into it.

The next step is to primer the surface using a protective compound with sealing and antiseptic qualities. Such solutions are currently on sale in a large assortment, but if we talk about the budget option, then you should use the PVA putty. It has an affordable price, a little less than glue, and the quality is acceptable.

For crates, as a rule, always use wooden slats. If the room is damp, a metal profile is recommended, but its installation requires certain skills, and for the price it is more expensive than wood.

It is very important to make installation of a good crate, because it gives you the opportunity to get rid of plastic at any time, if, say, you have the opportunity to replace it with more expensive material. Moreover, the thickness of the new lining can be any.

Before mounting the slats should be processed.For this purpose, a protective composition is used - you can take the same PVA putty, and you can treat the slats with engine oil. Attach the strap should be using dowels or long screws, which are wearing plastic sleeves.

Immediately do not completely pull the rail against the wall, because it still has to be adjusted using the level vertically, and it may well be that you still need to lay a gasket under the rail.

According to the classics, the slats are packed in 40–50 centimeters, but there is one subtlety here: you should fill at the knee level, at the waist level and at the shoulder level. This trick is dictated empirically, because it is in these places that plastic can most often be pushed through if you lean on it.

When guides are attached, the dowel must be immersed in the wall of a centimeter by 3-4 (not taking into account the layer of plaster). The thickness of the rail is selected in accordance with the type and thickness of insulation.

Warming immediately before finishing makes sense when you have installed metal-glass plastic windows (or you plan to do this). Therefore, the insulation is mounted immediately, otherwise then you have to dismantle the entire structure.

The most running insulation for the balcony - from foam.It is inexpensive, it is not afraid of moisture, and in terms of density it is quite acceptable. You can, of course, use extruded polystyrene foam as insulation in this case, but at the price it is more expensive, but in terms of density and technical data it is getting better.

Installation of the foam is a simple matter: foam should be placed tightly between the guides, and the assembly should be blown out of the slot. There is no need to attach the sheet of foam to the wall, because we will subsequently mount plastic directly on top of it.

For regions with a warm climate, it may be advisable to use foil-coated foam as a heater, but it is mounted on the wall and on the ceiling before the installation of the batten.

To trim the inner surface of the balcony with PVC panels, we begin with the fact that we mount the rails. They differ in their purpose and are U-shaped (this is the initial profile),H-shaped (used to build a short plank), F-shaped (help to hide the cavity, which was formed by the plastic bar and the surface), L-shaped, and also angular, ceiling and floor (plinth) - they are all attached in their places.

It is most convenient to mount the guides, of course, with a construction stapler, but self-tapping screws that have a sealing washer are also suitable for this purpose. In extreme cases, you can use the nails, but this is the most inconvenient option.

Begin installation from the most remote and most uncomfortable corner in the room. The first bar is inserted into the profile and level vertically. After that, the bar can already be attached to each of the slat battens.

Then it will be more fun - just insert the next bar into the slots and tightly join it with the first one (it should click).

Fix the panel on the batten should be in a checkerboard pattern, after one. The extreme bar must be cut to size and then insert it in a row.

There is good advice for cutting the plank across: a hacksaw for metal is best suited for this, and along this you can quickly and simply do this with the help of a construction knife.

Installation of plastic panels on the wall is usually performed in a vertical position, and the ceiling is more convenient to lay the panels in the transverse position. There are still diagonal styling, but this is not a way for beginners, but for masters with experience. In addition to the special skills that are necessary for such styling, in this case more waste is obtained.

This stage requires special responsibility. First of all, the rest of the surface is sheathed with solid wall panels, and the one that remained (above the opening and under the opening) is upholstered in the last place. The last panel before trimming is measured and monitored by how tightly the other panels dock with each other (all the slats should fit tightly into the grooves).

If during the installation work such troubles as cracks appear, they should be masked with the help of PVC plinth planted on the mounting adhesive.

In conclusion, you will have to “conjure” over the joint seams in the corners, for which you need to choose a sealant, the color of which would not be transparent, but coincided with the tone of the profile, and mask them.

Thus, you will not experience any special difficulties while finishing the balcony with plastic. It is enough to be able to handle the tool and carve it out for repair one day - and that’s it, your balcony will be sheathed with plastic.