Compare ondulin and corrugated board

When ana­lyz­ing the mate­ri­als used to cov­er the roof, we were faced with the fact that many devel­op­ers can­not choose between ondulin and cor­ru­gat­ed board. We will not give peremp­to­ry advice, since it is up to you to choose, but we will try to make this dif­fi­cult choice eas­i­er by mak­ing a small com­par­i­son. The dis­cus­sion was attend­ed by com­pe­tent spe­cial­ists of “Exper­tol­ogy”, who know every­thing, or almost every­thing, about roof­ing.

Affordable price, safety or quality? The choice is yours

The roof is “at the fore­front” of pro­tect­ing the struc­ture from pre­cip­i­ta­tion, solar ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion and oth­er unde­sir­able influ­ences, so spe­cial atten­tion should be paid to its coat­ing. The mar­ket for mod­ern roof­ing mate­ri­als is amaz­ing, and it is espe­cial­ly dif­fi­cult for novice roofers to make the right choice. For them, we have one piece of advice: first, decide what is more impor­tant to you: the price of the mate­r­i­al or its qual­i­ty and dura­bil­i­ty.

For a com­par­a­tive analy­sis, we took the most pop­u­lar mate­ri­als today — ondulin and pro­filed sheet. They have no sim­i­lar­i­ties, except for their pop­u­lar­i­ty, per­haps. The tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics, advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of the mate­ri­als will be dis­cussed fur­ther, and as for the price, be pre­pared that the cost of a sim­ple gal­va­nized cor­ru­gat­ed board is low­er than that of Ondulin, while pro­filed sheets with a pro­tec­tive poly­mer lay­er are more expen­sive.

Let’s compare the main characteristics of corrugated board and Ondulin

The choice of build­ing and fin­ish­ing mate­ri­als is a task with many unknowns, and it would be bet­ter if pro­fes­sion­als do it for you, and espe­cial­ly when it comes to roof­ing. Here it is impor­tant to take into account mul­ti­ple fac­tors, but you need to know how durable this or that mate­r­i­al is and how effec­tive pro­tec­tion of the struc­ture it offers. Now every­thing is in order.

Durability of materials

Speak­ing about the dura­bil­i­ty of the roof cov­ered with ondulin and cor­ru­gat­ed board, you should pay atten­tion to the com­po­si­tion of the mate­r­i­al. Let’s start with pro­filed sheets with a cor­ru­gat­ed sur­face. In their man­u­fac­ture, thin sheets of gal­va­nized steel are used, coat­ed in some cas­es with a poly­mer coat­ing that improves strength char­ac­ter­is­tics.

Despite all the “charms” of the mate­r­i­al, cor­ru­gat­ed board has one big dis­ad­van­tage — the need to pro­tect the attach­ment points to the roof ele­ments. If this is not done, cor­ro­sion will not take long, which can­not be said about Ondulin, in which this prob­lem is solved. The com­po­si­tion of the mate­r­i­al con­tributes to an increase in the pro­tec­tive func­tions at the attach­ment points, and for the man­u­fac­ture of Ondulin, pressed cel­lu­lose fibers are used, the pro­tec­tion of which is pro­vid­ed by bitu­mi­nous impreg­na­tion. The holes are “sealed” at the attach­ment points, and the mate­r­i­al does not allow mois­ture to pass through, which increas­es the ser­vice life of the roof. In this regard, the choice in favor of Ondulin seems obvi­ous to us, but this does not mean that it is more durable than the pro­filed sheet.

Ondulin man­u­fac­tur­ers claim that it can be used for up to 50 years, while it is con­sid­ered one hun­dred per­cent water­proof for only 10–15 years. Do you want to live 25–30 years under a leaky roof? If not, choose cor­ru­gat­ed board with a ser­vice life of 40–50 years, and it is guar­an­teed, because even cor­rod­ed met­al still does not let water through.

Did you know it? Despite the fact that poly­mer-coat­ed cor­ru­gat­ed board, although it costs more than Ondulin, does not with­stand Euro­pean frosts, the peel­ing of the sur­face will tell you that you made a mis­take with the choice in 2–3 years

Meet “by clothes”, or what material looks spectacular

As we have already found out, a poly­mer-coat­ed pro­filed sheet may not look pre­sentable over the years, although this applies to the advan­tages of regions with severe cli­mat­ic con­di­tions. If you are not wor­ried about high humid­i­ty, heat and severe frosts, you can con­sid­er cor­ru­gat­ed board­ing as an alter­na­tive to Ondulin.

In order to under­stand that the lat­ter looks more aes­thet­i­cal­ly pleas­ing, it is enough to make a visu­al com­par­i­son of hous­es cov­ered with dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als. And in this case, experts pre­fer Ondulin, which looks very pre­sentable due to the rough mat­te sur­face. In this case, there is no com­par­i­son with a sim­ple gal­va­nized sheet, which looks rel­a­tive­ly “cheap”, although more prof­itable, com­pared to gray slate — every­thing is known in com­par­i­son.

Operational properties

Let us remind you once again that we do not encour­age you to buy Ondulin, because in addi­tion to the advan­tages, it is also not ide­al, and you will be con­vinced of this after con­sid­er­ing the per­for­mance prop­er­ties of the mate­ri­als select­ed for com­par­i­son. In fact, Ondulin is not as strong as it seems, and if we talk about strength and the abil­i­ty to resist mechan­i­cal stress, then it los­es sig­nif­i­cant­ly to a pro­filed sheet. To be con­vinced of this, it is enough to look at what hap­pens to the mate­r­i­al after the fall of a branch or the impact of a large hail.

Remem­ber! Walk­ing on an ondulin roof is con­traindi­cat­ed, espe­cial­ly in frost and heat, when the mate­r­i­al is espe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble to mechan­i­cal dam­age — in sum­mer it is soft, and in win­ter it is frag­ile

Accord­ing­ly, the strength and resis­tance to mechan­i­cal stress of the pro­filed floor­ing is high­er. This can be explained by the pres­ence of stiff­en­ers and the nat­ur­al strength of the met­al, albeit of small thick­ness. Unlike a com­peti­tor, cor­ru­gat­ed board tol­er­ates tem­per­a­ture extremes well, but is very afraid of bends, which can­not be said about Ondulin with good plas­tic­i­ty. This means that the pro­filed sheet is suit­able for roof­ing with the cor­rect geom­e­try, and for a fig­ured roof it is bet­ter to choose an ondulin coat­ing.

If we com­pare the weight of the mate­r­i­al, which is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for the orga­ni­za­tion of trans­porta­tion and lift­ing, then the experts did not find much dif­fer­ence here. Both sub­jects are light­weight, espe­cial­ly when com­pared to asbestos slate and oth­er heavy roof­ing mate­ri­als.

fire safety

Speak­ing about the dura­bil­i­ty of mate­ri­als, it will not be super­flu­ous to recall such an impor­tant prop­er­ty as fire safe­ty. In this regard, Ondulin does not seem to us an ide­al roof­ing, as it is, in fact, paper impreg­nat­ed with bitu­men. One can imag­ine how well such a roof burns, so experts cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly do not rec­om­mend the use of mate­r­i­al to cov­er social infra­struc­ture facil­i­ties.

Although the man­u­fac­tur­ers of Ondulin are doing every­thing to increase its fire resis­tance, cor­ru­gat­ed board is bet­ter in this regard. Made from steel sheets, it does not sup­port com­bus­tion, so it is safe. It is rec­om­mend­ed to use it to cov­er the roofs of kinder­gartens, schools, med­ical insti­tu­tions and indus­tri­al build­ings.

Applications

We con­sid­er Ondu­line and cor­ru­gat­ed sheet in terms of roof­ing, but cor­ru­gat­ed sheet has a major advan­tage in this respect. In addi­tion to cov­er­ing the roof, it is indis­pens­able in the arrange­ment of the local area and in indus­tri­al enter­pris­es. In addi­tion to cov­er­ing the roof, it is used for the con­struc­tion of fences and tem­po­rary build­ings.

Mounting Features

The width of the Ondulin sheet is 96 cm, the height of the cor­ru­ga­tion is 36 mm, and the thick­ness is 3 mm, while its length does not exceed 2 meters, which can­not be said about cor­ru­gat­ed board. The thick­ness of the cor­ru­gat­ed board varies from 4 to 8 mm, the wave height can reach 75 mm, the width lies in the range of 1.1–1.25 m, and the length reach­es 12 m. roof. Anoth­er plus in favor of Ondu­line is that it can be cut with a reg­u­lar hack­saw, and the ease of instal­la­tion allows you to mount it in the most inac­ces­si­ble places.

It should be not­ed that Ondulin is afraid of high tem­per­a­tures, so its instal­la­tion in hot weath­er is dif­fi­cult, which can­not be said about cor­ru­gat­ed board. Anoth­er dis­ad­van­tage is the need to use a denser crate, in con­trast to the pro­filed sheet, which has addi­tion­al stiff­en­ers. This sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces costs. The advan­tages of the pro­filed sheet also include the pos­si­bil­i­ty of order­ing mate­r­i­al of any width and length, which helps to reduce con­sump­tion by reduc­ing the amount of waste. It is not rec­om­mend­ed, mean­while, to bend the pro­filed sheet; cut­ting it also takes more time.

The cor­ru­gat­ed board heats up very much, as it has a high coef­fi­cient of ther­mal con­duc­tiv­i­ty, there­fore, micro­cli­mate is dis­turbed under the roof. The con­se­quence of this is the appear­ance of con­den­sate on the inner sur­face of the roof, which means that you will addi­tion­al­ly have to spend mon­ey on the equip­ment of the water­proof­ing lay­er.

Price policy

In gen­er­al, the instal­la­tion of a roof from Ondulin, includ­ing the pur­chase of mate­r­i­al, will cost more than in the case of cor­ru­gat­ed board, but this is rel­a­tive. The fact is that the costs in the case of Ondulin will ulti­mate­ly be low­er, since it is not nec­es­sary to hire spe­cial trans­port for its deliv­ery, more­over, it is often nec­es­sary to unload the pro­filed sheet using lift­ing equip­ment, the ser­vices of which are expen­sive. Even a non-pro­fes­sion­al roofer will cov­er the roof with Ondulin in a few days, while only pro­fes­sion­als can work with a pro­filed sheet, and it is dif­fi­cult to call their ser­vices cheap.

What to choose: ondulin or corrugated board?

Briefly sum­ming up what has been said, it can be not­ed that the com­pared mate­ri­als have both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive prop­er­ties. In con­densed form it looks like this:

1. cor­ru­gat­ed board is a uni­ver­sal mate­r­i­al, and it is used as a roof­ing, for the instal­la­tion of hangars, fences and garages.

2. Ondulin, for its part, looks more pre­sentable, so for con­nois­seurs of beau­ti­ful roofs it is of par­tic­u­lar inter­est.

3. Ondu­line is eas­i­er to mount, there are no dif­fi­cul­ties with deliv­ery and lift­ing.

4. The guar­an­teed ser­vice life of a pro­fes­sion­al floor­ing is more.

5. Con­den­sa­tion often forms under pro­filed sheets.

6. Ondulin is not durable, as it is able to active­ly resist mois­ture for only 10–15 years, which can­not be said about a pro­filed sheet designed for decades of oper­a­tion.

Con­sid­er­ing all the pros and cons, we do not rec­om­mend mak­ing hasty con­clu­sions, since each mate­r­i­al has both advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages. Esti­mate cor­rect­ly in what con­di­tions the roof will be oper­at­ed. It is very impor­tant whether it will be a pri­vate house in the Far North or a school in the cen­tral part of Europe, where there is no swel­ter­ing heat and severe frosts. We hope that you will take advan­tage of our advice and make the right choice.