Growth in these product categories, coupled with new services and applications, encourages dealers and contractors to be more creative in their uses both inside and outside.
By: Craig A. Shutt
As the market rebounds and homeowners look to put their own stamp on their new home, mouldings are growing in usage both inside and outside the home. Manufacturers are encouraging expansion by adding new services and programs, helping everyone in the channel access more options and find creative ways to use the wider range of products.
“Mouldings can provide more personalization for each home, and home- owners want that,” says Rick Kapres, vice president of sales and marketing for Versatex. “They want to customize the appearance to create their own look.” That desire leads to more uses in different ways for mouldings. “There’s more creativity involved with moulding designs today,” says Al Delbridge, president of EastCoast Mouldings, a division of ECMD Inc. “Builders are looking at mouldings in more creative ways because they realize that mouldings add value. We try to show mouldings in every way we can to encourage that creativity.”
Some of that expansion comes from homeowners mixing and matching materials to create a unique exterior design overall, says Tom Zimmerman, director of sales and marketing for Boral. “There’s much more use of blended materials on a home’s exterior today. Builders are shifting away from wood on the exterior to avoid maintenance issues.”
Dawn Habgood, vice president of research solutions at Principia, a market-research firm, sees those trends represented in market statistics. “While all trim products are projected to grow, we expect cellular vinyl, engineered wood and fiber cement will grow slightly faster than average because they are prefinished, easy to install and low maintenance.”