PVC Foam Board Complete Guide: Manufacturers, Quality and Shipping
PVC foam board is wildly used in all construction.
But how much do you know about this product?
How can you find a good factory in China?
And most importantly how to make sure you get what you paid for?
If you have these questions, you’re in the right place.
Let’s get started with this PVC foamboard complete guide.
What is PVC foam board
PVC foamboard, also known as expanded PVC foam sheet, is a lightweight and rigid material that has less density as traditional PVC.
It keeps many of the same characteristics as typical PVC, such as an excellent strength-to-weight ratio, good flame resistance, and exceptional chemical tolerance.
PVC foam board advantages and disadvantages
PVC is a material with lots of unique physical and chemical features, which make PVC foamboard one of the top building materials for construction. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of PVC foam sheet in terms of its characteristics.
PVC Foamboard Advantages and Benefits
Strong and durable
PVC’s abrasion resistance, decent mechanical strength and durability are
main engineering advantages for use in building and construction applications.
Lightweight
PVC foam boards are light in weight comparing to plywood and can be quickly assembled and shipped, which makes it an ideal replacement of the traditional wood panel.
Easy to process
You can easily cut, shape, and attach the PVC foamboards according to need.
Non-Toxic
PVC foamboard is a safe and eco-friendly material that has been used for more than half a century. It does not contain a large amount of formaldehyde like other interior decoration materials.
Fire-Resistant
PVC foam sheet will burn when exposed to a fire. However, if the ignition source is withdrawn, they will stop burning. Because of its high chlorine content, expanded PVC products have fire safety characteristics.
Water-Resistant
The moisture-resistance of PVC is a significant property, and people use PVC foam boards in many marine applications.
Anti-Corrosion
PVC foamboard comes with the anti-corrosive property and chemical stability that would keep it safe even at the time of chemical contact.
Soundproof
Expanded PVC foamboards sometimes are used in soundproofing. While sound usually cannot be blocked completely, substantial noise reduction is possible.
Electrical Insulating
The electrical characteristics of PVC, such as electrical insulating properties or dielectric constant are excellent.
PVC Foam Board Disadvantages
Limited Color Options
The most common color of the expanded PVC foam board is white, but actually, it’s also available in other colors as long as your order quantity meets manufacturers’ color MOQ.
Because of the production workmanship of the product, for a very long time, buyers’ color option can only be plain colors from the Pantone instead of natural patterns like timber surface with wood grain.
However, this situation has changed after the laminated process had been used on the foam PVC board. Today if you see a kitchen cabinet in wood grain style, it might be made of PVC foamboard.
What are the common uses of PVC foamboard?
- Cars, buses, trains ceilings
- Partition boards, interior panels, decorative panels
- Indoor furniture, like kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanity
- Residential and commercial construction materials
- Advertising, sign displaying, computer lettering boards
- Anti-corrosion in the chemical industry
- Humid and moisture environment construction
What are the types of PVC foam board?
There are lots of different types of PVC foamboard in the market. Before you talk to wholesalers or manufacturers, make sure you know what the differences are and where you should use them.
PVC Free Foam Board
“Free” refers to the free-foam method during its production process. The foam PVC melt expands freely after leaving the die head, before entering the calibrator, which is separated from the die.
The Free-foam method is the most basic workmanship of producing PVC foam board. That’s why usually PVC free foam board costs the least among all types.
PVC Celuka Foam Board (pvc crust foam board)
“Celuka” is one of the production processes. The Celuka method uses a mandrel within the die, and there is usually little space between the die and the calibrator.
The cooling of the surfaces that come into contact with the walls of the calibrator produces a very solid outer skin on the surface of the board while inwardly filling the foam layer.
PVC Co-Extrusion Foam Board
The Co-extrusion process is an upgraded version of a normal extrusion process. It makes the sheet combined with three layers: two outer layers of rigid PVC, and the middle layer is foam PVC.
Thanks to its rigid layers, the PVC co-extrusion foam board has a much harder and smoother surface than the PVC celuka foam board.
PVC Laminated Foam Board
PVC laminated foam board is a PVC foam board with one or both sides laminated surface. This product has solved the problem of limited pattern options of PVC foamboard.
With its PVC film or aluminum surface, PVC laminated foam sheet can look like natural wood and even has wood grain texture.
Colored PVC FoamBoard
The color of the PVC foam board is added in the raw material stage, which makes the whole board in one color. As a buyer, you can custom make any color you want with a particular order quantity.
What are the common quality problems of PVC foam board?
According to our experience as a professional sourcing agent, we should never expect our orders will be exactly like how it should be if you’re not doing quality control.
Let’s go through some of the major quality issues you should avoid before paying balance payment to your PVC foam sheet supplier.
- Yellowing surface
You ordered white foam boards, but there is a yellowing surface.
- Large foam cell
The foam cell of the PVC foam board should be small and consistent.
- Unsmooth surface
The surface of the foam board should be smooth.
- Panel warped
The PVC foam sheet should be flat and straight.
- Wrong density
You ordered 0.5 density foam PVC boards, but the final product density turns out to be 0.45.
- Uneven density in a sheet
Due to the imperfect production process, one side of the sheet is in less density than the other side.
- Scratched surface
Scratched surface due to poor protection.
- Surface impurity
The surface impurity happens because the raw material is contaminated.
- Damaged edge
The edges are damaged because of the unorganized production process.
- Poor packaging
The supplier doesn’t have enough understanding of the needed packaging level.
How to find a reliable PVC foam board manufacturer in China?
Do you know if a PVC foamboard supplier is a real factory or just a trading company?
When you’re searching online for a potential supplier of PVC foam sheet, you will find most of the companies said they are manufacturers.
The truth? Most of the suppliers you can find online are actually trading companies. Since a large percentage of factories in China usually just focusing on production and don’t even have English speaking sales in-house.
Do you know if your PVC foamboard supplier is reliable and legitimate?
We’ve been helping building material buyers import PVC foam board from China for years.
During our supplier evaluation process, we found one interesting fact, which is several PVC foam sheet companies are actually own by one boss.
It seems nothing wrong in the very beginning until we found out two of his companies had been taken to court for failure to deliver the goods according to contract.
Imagine what happens if you are the one dealing with these companies?
You can learn more about how to find reliable factories in China for your products in our complete guide.
How to ship PVC foam board from China?
When you’re buying wholesale expanded PVC foam sheet in China, one of the first decisions you need to make is, which method to ship from China?
20GP container vs. 40HQ container
There are some factors you should think about before deciding which type of container you should use.
How many pieces of PVC foam boards you need?
How will the products be packed?
How many pieces can be loaded in each type of container?
What is the shipping cost difference between each container type?
Sea Freight vs. Air Freight
As one of the building materials produced in China, PVC foamboard has a very similar value-to-weight ratio as other building supplies in the category.
If your project is not super urgent, we highly recommend you should always go for sea freight to save your shipping cost.
We’ve been helping building material buyers import PVC foam board from China for years.
During our supplier evaluation process, we found one interesting fact, which is several PVC foam sheet companies are actually own by one boss.
It seems nothing wrong in the very beginning until we found out two of his companies had been taken to court for failure to deliver the goods according to contract.
Imagine what happens if you are the one dealing with these companies?
Are you ready to import from China?
Do you know how to get a good price?
How would you control the product quality?
And what are the best steps to book your ship?
If you want to import PVC foam board from China safely at the best cost, you will be in good hands With HUACI SOURCING.
We handle all the hassle for you in the supply chain, so you can relax and focus on growing your business.