Composite Decking into Rotterdam — Factory Direct, and Set Up for Onward Distribution

The Decking Range

Capped co-extrusion and classic uncapped, hollow and solid. Six of the sections Dutch distributors order most — the full schedule runs to well over a hundred.

Co-extrusion 23 × 138

Capped, hollow, round chamber

The main capped section. This is the profile our slip test was run on.

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Co-extrusion 23 × 148

Capped, hollow, premium

Wider capped board, four-sided cap. The usual choice for terraces in full sun.

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Co-extrusion solid 20 × 140

Capped, solid core

Solid throughout. Specified for commercial traffic and exposed edges.

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3D embossed, round chamber

Deep-grain surface

Heavier embossing than a standard woodgrain, in the capped construction.

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3D embossed, square chamber

Deep-grain surface

Same surface, square-cell core. Lower cost per square metre than the round-chamber section.

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Classic 140 × 25

Uncapped, square chamber

First-generation grade, shown in Walnut. Cost-led work with routine cleaning.

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Colours — Three Ranges, and the One That Decides Which Grade You Are Buying

For the Dutch market this is a specification question, not a decorating one. The colour most clients ask for is grey, and grey decides the grade before anything else does.

The full colour card

Capped co-extrusion: Teak, Antique, Redwood, IPE, Light-grey, Walnut.
Classic uncapped: Teak, Redwood, Walnut, Coffee, Chocolate, Ebony.
3D embossing: Teak, Red Wood, Walnut, Chocolate, Light Grey, Dark Grey.

Where the greys live

Grey is available in the capped co-extrusion range (Antique, Light-grey) and in the 3D embossing range (Light Grey, Dark Grey). So when a Dutch client specifies grey, which is most of the time, the job is a capped or 3D embossed job and the price should be quoted on that basis from the start. Pricing a grey terrace off a classic sheet and discovering this later is an avoidable argument. Note too that the same colour name across ranges is not the same colour: Walnut in the capped range is not Walnut in the classic.

Two things worth settling before you order

A swatch is an indication, not a match. Screens and print both shift colour, and under flat Dutch overcast light a board reads differently from how it reads in a showroom. Ask for physical samples in the two or three you have shortlisted — free, you cover the courier, credited in full against your first order. And order the whole job in one batch: pigment goes into the extrusion, so two runs of the same colour will not be identical and a board replaced in year four will not match. Keep spares from the same shipment.

What the Board Is Actually Made Of

Straight from our own catalogue, with nothing rounded up.

60% wood powder, 30% HDPE

The balance of roughly ten per cent is additives — we would rather say that than quote a figure that adds up to a hundred. On the capped range a co-extruded shield wraps a WPC core, and the shield is the wearing layer: it is what resists fading and scratching. The material can be recycled and reused at end of life.

Sections, with the dimensions on them

Six of the capped sections with board width and thickness: ZSGJ138H23A and ZSGJ138H23C at 138 × 23 mm, ZSGJ138H25 at 138 × 25, ZSGJ140S23 at 140 × 23, ZSGJ140S25 at 140 × 25 and ZSGJ145S30 at 145 × 30. The capped generation runs round chambers rather than the square cells of the classic range — they clear water instead of holding it, which in a climate as wet as this one is not a detail. Quote the model number back to us and there is no ambiguity.

Surface textures

Four surfaces: H1 straight grain, and H2, H3 and H5 wood grain. Texture and colour are specified separately, so say both when you enquire.

Where Dutch Distributors Put It

Three project types that come up again and again in the Netherlands, each with its own specification questions.

Roof terraces and balconies

Dutch cities build outward onto flat roofs. Pedestals sit on the membrane rather than through it, and adjust to take up the fall the roof already has. Tell us the height under the threshold and we will name the model.

Gardens on soft ground

Peat, clay and a water table close to the surface. A strip footing settles unevenly and takes the deck with it; a framed deck standing clear of the ground on adjustable pedestals is re-levelled in an afternoon instead.

Pool surrounds

The coping detail, chlorine on every metal component, and slip underfoot. Most suppliers answer the slip question with the wrong test — ask which method the number came from.

Why So Many Importers Choose Rotterdam — and It Is Not Only the Port

Rotterdam gets picked as a European entry point more often than its size alone explains. If you are weighing it up, there are two mechanisms worth knowing about, and a third thing worth knowing about the Dutch trade itself. None of this is advice we can give you formally — it is what we see our Dutch accounts doing.

The import VAT question that changes the cash-flow arithmetic

The Netherlands operates a mechanism that lets qualifying importers account for import VAT on their return rather than paying it at the border and reclaiming it later. For a distributor bringing in containers, the difference is not the amount of tax — it is when the money leaves.

Whether you qualify, what it requires and how it is applied for are questions for your own tax adviser or customs agent, not for us, and we will not pretend otherwise. We raise it because more than one distributor has ruled Rotterdam out on cash-flow grounds that may simply not have applied to them. It costs one conversation with your accountant to find out.

Bonded storage, and not clearing everything at once

The second mechanism is storage. Goods can sit in bonded warehousing and be cleared as they are drawn down, which suits a distributor whose stock feeds several markets at different speeds. For us that changes one practical thing: how the consignment is packed and labelled.

If part of a container is going to be split off and moved on while the rest waits, say so at the order stage. We will make up the bundles so a split does not mean unwrapping and re-wrapping pallets on a warehouse floor, and we will make sure the paperwork identifies the parts sensibly. This costs nothing if it is planned and is genuinely annoying if it is not.

The Dutch trade mixes project work and retail more than most

In several of our markets a distributor is clearly one thing or the other. Here it is common for the same business to supply landscapers on contract and sell through a garden centre or a showroom to the end customer. That mix has a consequence worth planning for: the same colour ends up being sold in two completely different ways, to two customers with different expectations.

The contract side wants the section drawing, the support spacing and a delivery date. The retail side wants a sample that matches the board in stock and an installation sheet the customer can actually follow. Ask us for both sets of material rather than adapting one for the other — we would rather send the technical pack and the customer-facing sheet separately than have a homeowner reading a support-spacing table.

What to tell us so the quotation fits the operation

Three things, and they take one line each. Whether the stock serves the Netherlands only or feeds onward markets. Whether any of it will be split or held before clearance. And whether it is going to contract customers, retail customers or both.

None of these change the price per square metre. All of them change how we schedule the run, how we pack it and what we send with it — and getting them right at the first order is the difference between a supplier who fits your operation and one you have to work around.

Installation and Accessories

From our own installation guide. Put these figures on the drawing before the frame goes down — most of the failures we see in Europe come from a frame set out to timber habits.

The gaps, and the double joist

5–7 mm between the sides of adjacent boards. About 5 mm between a capped board and a wall. 3–5 mm at butt joints where two board ends meet. Butt joints sit on double joists — each board end gets its own joist, never a shared one, and this is the detail most often missed. Boards fix with stainless or plastic clips; the joist itself can be aluminium, stainless steel or WPC. Set a gutter at the base so water drains rather than ponds — in this climate that detail does more for the green-film problem than anything else on the page.

Accessories, with sizes

Stainless steel start clip, plastic clip, expansion screw, L-shaped corner trim 50 × 50 × 3000 mm, WPC joist 40 × 30 × 3000 mm, aluminium joist 40 × 25 × 2900 mm. Note the aluminium joist is 2900 mm, not 3000 — an easy hundred millimetres to lose when you take off quantities. Near the coast, specify A4 / 316 stainless for the clips and fixings rather than A2.

Ask About a Specific Profile

Send the section and the volume

Inside the Plant

Our own facility in Sihui, Zhaoqing, Guangdong. Not stock images. Buyers and third-party inspectors are welcome on site.

The plant

The address on our invoices is this building, not an office.

Extrusion

Around 2,000 tonnes a month leaves these lines — roughly 100 containers.

Our own dies

We own the tooling and cut new sections in-house.

Finished goods

Palletised and wrapped, ready for the container. The test report ships with the goods.

What Owning the Line Gives You

Capacity you can book against

Roughly 2,000 tonnes a month, about 100 containers. What matters to a distributor is not the headline but that a repeat order does not queue behind somebody else's. Send the volume and the date; we answer with a slot, not a hope.

Dies are ours, so sections are ours

We own the moulds and cut them in-house. That is why the schedule runs past a hundred sections rather than a catalogue page — and why we can talk seriously about a market-specific profile.

A test report with every shipment

Goods are checked before despatch and the report travels with them. Routine, not negotiated — and it is what makes a warranty claim a paperwork exercise later instead of an argument.

Certification: What We Hold, and the Exact Scope

Dutch specifiers verify, so here is the whole picture including the scope limits — a certificate covering three profiles is not a certificate covering the catalogue. Ask and we send the document itself.

Get the Documents Themselves

Nothing above is a claim you have to take on trust. Tell us which documents your project needs and we will send the PDFs — certificate, Declaration of Performance with the reaction-to-fire class, and the laboratory reports.

Request the certificates and test reports

What We Do for a Distributor

A first order can be well under a container

Minimum order is 70 m². Well under a full container, and it exists so a new distributor can test a colour, a profile and our paperwork before committing to a 40HQ. Most suppliers at this end of the market quote 1 × FCL and lose the first conversation.

Samples are free

You pay the courier and we credit it in full against your first order. Ask for a sawn sample: the cut end shows whether the cap runs all the way round the section or stops at the sides. Ask for more than one colour while you are at it — see the card above.

A project-specific per-unit quotation

Send the specification and the volume, get a per-unit price rather than a range. We need: profile, colour, quantity in m², discharge port and the date it has to be on the ground.

Private label, market-specific sections, testing on your profile

All three are conversations. We own the tooling, we already run sections cut for particular export markets, and where a project needs a test our documents do not cover we will put your profile through the laboratory — fee up front, credited against the order. Every result we send you names the profile it was measured on.

The Netherlands: Route, Transit and Terms

Loading is Nansha or Yantian, both in Guangdong, both within trucking distance of the plant.

What the Dutch Climate Does to a Deck

Specific to the Netherlands. It is not the advice we would give a buyer in Spain or the Gulf, and it is not quite the advice we give in Germany either — here the failure modes are damp, wind and ground, in that order.

The green film is the number one complaint, and it arrives faster here than inland

A Dutch winter is not especially cold — it is relentlessly wet and grey. A north-facing terrace barely dries out between November and March, and algae takes hold on any surface that stays damp. It is not the board degrading and it washes off, but it appears sooner and more heavily than it does in a drier inland climate, so tell your customer before they discover it. Fall on the substructure, clear board gaps and a wash twice a year handle it. A flat deck with blocked gaps does not.

Wind is the constraint people forget

The country is flat, open and on the North Sea. On a roof terrace or any raised deck that means uplift — and uplift is carried by the clips and the substructure fixings, not by the weight of the board. Specify the fixing to the exposure rather than to habit, and on a pedestal deck over a roof get the pedestal loading checked by whoever signs the roof off.

Soft ground and a water table close to the surface

Much of the country sits on peat and clay with water not far down, and it moves. A strip footing under a garden deck settles unevenly and the deck telegraphs it within a couple of seasons. Adjustable pedestals on spread pads are the normal answer here — they take the movement out in an afternoon instead of a rebuild. Dutch installers know this; the instruction sheet that arrives with an imported deck usually does not mention it.

Salt air attacks the fixings, not the boards

Most of the Randstad is close to the coast, and in an onshore wind salt carries further inland than people expect. The composite handles it. Screws, clips, joist hangers and post bases do not — and that is exactly where nobody looks. Near the coast specify A4 / 316 stainless rather than A2, because replacing corroded fixings means lifting the deck to get at them.

Milder swings than Germany, but leave the end gap anyway

A maritime climate means a narrower annual range than an inland one, so thermal movement is less dramatic here than on a German terrace. It is not zero. Composite still moves more along its length than timber, and a board butted tight to a wall has nowhere to go in the one hot week of July. The figures are in the installation section above: about 5 mm to a wall, 3–5 mm at butt joints.

Three Things That Go Wrong When Europeans Import WPC

Not sales copy — these are the three that cost distributors money.

The frame is set out for timber

A joiner spaces joists at whatever timber decking takes, because that is the habit. Composite has a maximum support spacing and it is tighter than timber. Get the figure for your profile in writing and put it on the drawing before the frame goes down. Wrong, and the deck does not collapse — it flexes underfoot permanently, and the fix is lifting the boards.

The end gap gets left out

The most expensive of the three, because a buckled deck is a full relay. The figures are in the installation section above — and the double joist under a butt joint is the half of it people forget.

Batch colour is not matched later

Pigment goes into the extrusion, so two runs of the same colour will not be identical. Order the whole job in one batch and keep spares from it. A board replaced in year four will not match — ours or anybody else's. Distributors who hold a buffer from each shipment avoid the argument entirely.

Warranty, and How a Claim Works

Stepped, not flat

Capped co-extrusion carries 15 years, classic uncapped 10. Both step down by year rather than paying full value throughout: 100% of the value of the affected goods in years 1–3, then 80, 70, 50 and 40% through years 4 to 7, then reducing in bands to 10% in the final years. It covers peeling, cracking and overall uneven fading.

It starts at the destination port

Cover runs from the date the goods arrive and are signed for at the port — not our factory gate, and not the day your customer installs them. That usually works in the distributor's favour, and it is worth checking against how long stock sits before it is drawn down.

Certificates are per batch

The schedule that applies is the one on that batch's certificate, which is why the test report shipping with the goods matters. Keep it with the commercial paperwork — and if a consignment gets split between markets, split the paperwork with it. If a supplier quotes you a flat 25 years, ask for the schedule.

Talk to Us About the Netherlands

The full enquiry, if you would rather send everything at once. We review the complete specification before issuing A project-specific per-unit price.

Distributor and project enquiry

Material Price and Installed Cost Are Different Numbers

A useful <strong>composite decking cost</strong> comparison for Dutch distribution separates the board price from freight, Rotterdam handling, storage, inland delivery and local installation.

The cost of composite decking begins with a named profile

The cost of composite decking changes with cap construction, section weight, colour mix, order quantity and packaging. We quote the selected profile and quantity rather than publishing a retail-style range.

A composite deck cost belongs to the actual project

A complete composite deck cost also includes the substructure, clips, waste allowance, access and labour. Those local items should be priced by the Dutch installer or distributor, while we provide the product take-off and shipment assumptions.

Related decking guides

• Composite Decking: Costs, Designs and Technology — the main product, design and cost variables to compare before requesting a quotation.
• UK Composite Decking Cost Benchmark — a clearly labelled UK benchmark for separating board, subframe and installed cost.
• Deck Material Calculator — calculate board count, joists, waste allowance and a metric cut list.

The Netherlands: Common Questions