vinyl
Lightweight vinyl plastic used for facade cladding, commonly as weatherboard-like siding on houses.
Vinyl is a lightweight synthetic material which is often used as a siding for houses and small residential buildings. It combines the advantages of being durable, waterproof, and inexpensive, but it emits toxic fumes when burned and is not biodegradable. It is usually installed in the form of weatherboarding, and is often made to look like wood, even with artificial wood grain embossed on it.
One of the most common chemical forms of vinyl used in construction is polyvinyl chloride (PVC), but as a category of plastics it includes other variants, also derived from ethene.
Weatherboard form and embossed wood grain are common appearances rather than required features. The cladding remains vinyl when it imitates wood, and PVC is included without excluding the other vinyl variants described here.
