Composite Decking for Switzerland — Outside the EU, and the Paperwork Knows It

The Decking Range

Capped co-extrusion and classic uncapped, hollow and solid. Six of the sections Swiss buyers 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 where the terrace is exposed all day.

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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 Why Sun Comes at a Swiss Deck Twice

The whole card, and one thing about exposure here that is genuinely different from a deck at sea level.

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.

Ultraviolet climbs with altitude, and then the snow sends it back up at you

Two things stack here that do not stack on a coastal terrace. UV intensity rises with height — which is why a mountain terrace weathers a surface faster than a garden at 400 m — and snow reflects a large share of it straight back upwards, so a deck above the snowline in winter takes sun from below as well as above.

The practical consequence is about the capped range rather than about colour. On a capped board the co-extruded shield is the layer that carries the UV exposure, and it is the layer that decides how the surface reads in year eight. For a high-altitude project, specify from the capped range and say so in the brief. For a terrace in Zürich or Lugano the choice is more open.

Where the greys live

Grey is what Swiss clients ask for most. It is available in the capped co-extrusion range (Antique, Light-grey) and in the 3D embossing range (Light Grey, Dark Grey). So a grey brief is a capped or 3D embossed job and should be priced that way from the first conversation. And the same colour name across two ranges is not the same colour: Walnut in the capped range is not Walnut in the classic.

Two things to settle before you order

A swatch is an indication, not a match. Screens and print both shift colour, so 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. 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. 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 Swiss Buyers Put It

Three project types that come up again and again here, each with its own specification question.

Covered mountain balconies

Holiday property and Zweitwohnungen. A roof over the deck changes the problem: the boards stay dry while the air around them cycles hard between day and night, so the movement joints matter more than the drainage does.

Hotel and restaurant terraces

A commercial surface walked in shoes, usually wet, by people who did not choose the flooring. This is where the slip method matters and where the solid section earns its price.

Slopes, steps and retaining walls

Very little of this country is flat. A run of steps is where frost movement shows first, because a riser that has lifted is visible in a way a flat deck is not — so the stringers get the same treatment as the frame.

Switzerland Is Not in the EU, and Your Paperwork Knows It

Every other country page on this site describes a delivery inside a single customs territory. This one does not, and that changes four things — where the container clears, what a CE file is doing for you, which currency the deal lives in, and what happens if you also sell across the border. None of it is difficult. All of it is expensive to discover late.

There is exactly one Swiss port, and it is on a river

Switzerland is landlocked, so the container discharges in someone else's country. The usual candidates are Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp or Genoa, and which is right depends on where in Switzerland you are and what your forwarder already runs.

The option worth knowing about, and the one buyers outside the country rarely raise: Basel is a working port on the Rhine. Containers move by barge up the river from Rotterdam or Antwerp to the Basel terminals, which for a customer in the north or the Mittelland can mean the goods reach Swiss soil without a long road leg. It is not the fastest route and it is not right for every consignment — river levels and barge schedules are their own variable — but it is a genuine third option next to road and rail, and it is worth asking your forwarder to price it alongside the others rather than assuming a truck from Rotterdam.

Where you clear decides whether you do it once or twice

This is the part that catches people. A container landing at Rotterdam is sitting in the EU customs territory. Switzerland is not in it. So there are broadly two shapes:

• Clear into the EU at the port, then move the goods to Switzerland. That is two procedures, because the second border is real.
• Move the container under a transit procedure to an inland clearance point in Switzerland and clear once, on arrival.

Which one suits you is not a question about the goods — it is a question about your business. An importer who also sells inside the EU may genuinely want the first. A pure Swiss distributor almost always wants the second. Your forwarder or customs agent decides this, not us. What we do is prepare the documents for the shape you have chosen, so tell us which when you enquire rather than after the container has sailed.

What the CE file actually does for you here

We hold CE marking under the EU Construction Products Regulation — certificate M.2024.206.C97619, UDEM International Certification, a notified body, issued against EN 15534-1 and EN 14041, with the reaction-to-fire class on the Declaration of Performance for the named profile.

Switzerland runs its own construction-products regime rather than being inside the EU one. Whether and how that file satisfies a particular Swiss project is a judgement for your specifier, your importer or the authority concerned — it is not ours to make, and a supplier who tells you otherwise is guessing on your behalf.

What we can do is concrete: hand over the documents themselves, with the numbers, so whoever has to make that judgement is looking at the real thing. That means the certificate, the DoP for the exact profile you are quoting, and the laboratory reports with their report numbers. If the project needs something our current documents do not cover, we will put your profile through the laboratory — fee up front, credited against the order.

Which currency the quotation lives in

A Swiss buyer is earning in francs and buying in something else, and the gap between the two is somebody's risk. It is worth deciding whose, on purpose, at the quotation stage rather than at the invoice.

Tell us which currency you want the quotation in when you enquire and we will tell you plainly what we can do. It is a short conversation and it is much better had before the price is agreed than after.

If you sell across the border as well

A lot of Swiss distributors do. Southern Germany, the Alsace, northern Italy and Vorarlberg are all closer to large parts of Switzerland than Geneva is to St. Gallen, and a customer base that spans the border is normal here rather than exotic.

The thing to plan for is that one shipment may end up serving two customs territories, and that is a documentation question before it is a logistics one. Say so at the first order and we will make up the paperwork so a consignment can be split cleanly — and, just as important, we will schedule the colour in one production run, because a client who sees the same deck on both sides of the border is a client who will notice a batch difference.

What to tell us

Five things, and the first two are the ones other suppliers forget to ask: where you intend to clear, whether you also distribute into the EU, the delivery postcode, the profile and colour, and the date it has to be on the ground. The postcode is not a formality — it decides which port makes sense, and on this page it is also the altitude question.

Installation and Accessories

From our own installation guide. Put these figures on the drawing before the frame goes down.

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.

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.

Altitude, Briefly

The reasoning is the same as on our Austrian page and we would rather link to it than rewrite it. Three things that are specific enough to be worth repeating here.

The postcode is the first specification question

Altitude decides more than latitude does. A balcony in Basel and a Hütte terrace at 1,800 m carry the same board into two different jobs: different UV load, different temperature range across a single day, different snow. Send the delivery postcode with the enquiry and we will tell you which of those we are quoting for.

The full version — port choice by Bundesland, what changes with height, getting material to a job on a slope — is on the Austrian page, and it applies here almost unchanged.

In the mountains the day-night swing does what the winter does elsewhere

Most of our European pages talk about the expansion gap in terms of February against July. At altitude the more demanding cycle is often morning against afternoon, because a surface in thin air can move through a wide range inside one day, and it does it every day rather than twice a year.

It does not change the figures — about 5 mm to a wall, 3–5 mm at butt joints, 5–7 mm between board sides — but it does change how seriously to take them. Where boards are fitted cold, work to the upper end of the range. And where a deck is under a roof, as on a covered balcony, remember the boards stay dry while the air still cycles: the movement is thermal, and it happens anyway.

What clears the snow is the thing that damages the deck

Snow load itself is a question for whoever designs the substructure, not for the board. The part that comes back to you as a complaint is the shovel: a steel-edged blade dragged across a composite deck scratches the shield, and on a capped board the shield is the wearing layer. Tell the customer to use a plastic blade and to push rather than chop. It costs nothing at the point of sale and it is expensive to argue about afterwards.

The same applies to grit and de-icing salt. The composite handles them; screws, clips, joist hangers and post bases are where they do damage, and that is exactly where nobody looks until the deck has to come up. Specify the fixing grade at quotation rather than as an afterthought at the end of the bill.

Ask About a Specific Profile

Send the section, the volume and the delivery postcode

Inside the Plant

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

Extrusion

65 lines running the length of the building. Around 2,000 tonnes a month leaves them — roughly 100 containers.

Loading for Nansha or Yantian

Banded and wrapped before it leaves the plant. The test report travels with the goods.

Colours side by side

Worth seeing in the flesh before you choose. A screen or a printed card is an indication; the sample wall is the real thing.

Certification: What We Hold, and the Exact Scope

Swiss 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 — which in this market also means testing the customs shape you have chosen before you do it at volume.

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.

A real number within 24 hours

Send the specification and the volume, get a per-unit price rather than a range. We need: profile, colour, quantity in m², the delivery postcode, where you intend to clear, 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 and cut our dies in-house, 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.

Switzerland: Route, Transit and Terms

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

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 figures are in the installation section above, and the double joist under a butt joint is the half of it people forget. At altitude this is the one to be strict about, because the cycle that opens and closes that gap runs daily rather than seasonally.

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.

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.

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 is split between a Swiss job and one across the border, split the paperwork with it. If a supplier quotes you a flat 25 years, ask for the schedule.

Talk to Us About Switzerland

The full enquiry, if you would rather send everything at once. You will hear back within 24 hours with a real per-unit price.

Distributor and project enquiry

Switzerland: Common Questions