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Houses in Australia face some of the most severe weather conditions in the world, from huge tropical cyclones to extreme UV from the sun. Traditional painted houses will find their colour degrades with time, but Duratuff Select Vinyl Wall Cladding has been designed to maintain its rich colour.

The reason colours deteriorate in the sun is that the chemicals that create colours are broken down by the ultraviolet light in sunshine.

Dura Technology offers colour preservation through the most advanced colour retention technology available.

Vinyl was first created in the 1920's and quickly became a key component in many products, including wall cladding. Vinyl is now the worlds second most used plastic, but unlike its counterparts, Vinyl has many environmentally friendly features.

The main building block for vinyl is Chlorine, made from common salt. This makes up just under 60% of vinyl's chemical structure. Meaning it is a sustainable and cost effective product.

During manufacturing, Vinyl Cladding consumes less than half of the energy necessary to produce bricks and mortar. Vinyl Cladding is also much lighter than bricks and mortar, meaning reduced fuel consumption during transportation.

MD Brick has been appointed the leading supplier of Craft Stone's full range of stone cladding for the Central Coast area.

Craft Stone is a manufactured stone, made from lightweight concrete and is a lifelike replica of real stone. Cast separately from thousands of stone moulds, each individual piece is coloured to make sure there are never two stones that are the same. Craft Stone looks and feels like the original, just without the price tag.

Provincial Homes are creating new and exciting home designs with innovative and stylish products in mind. Martin Driene from MD Brick says "stone wall cladding is becoming extraordinarily popular in construction and renovations. Home owners and builders are now both seeing the advantages in manufactured stone".

The Australian Construction industry has recently seen a surge in construction of home wine cellars with ridged insulation. Once considered a seldom-used room in the basement, the trend is moving towards a wine cellar in the main house, where people can show guests their collection and easily pick out the best drop for an occasion.

Wine cellars must be constructed properly to ensure the health of the wine. They must have a controlled temperature and humidity while limiting exposure UV light. This often requires artificial systems that are costly to run and maintain. To minimize this, it is recommended that wine cellars use a ridged insulation with high R-values.

Foamular Extruded Polystyrene is recommended in all cold storage applications, including wine cellars. Foamular's ridged closed cell structure means it can withstand the extremes of cold storage, which is easily adapted to wine cellars.

Parts of Australia have recently been faced with a surge of extreme weather. With gale force winds and flooding causing millions of dollars in property damage. A great deal of the damage was caused to properties built without protection from environmental extremes.

With climate change, it is expected that the weather will worsen all over Australia, with more severe droughts and larger storms, with more frequent high winds and hail. In order to protect their assets, homeowners need to think carefully when choosing external wall cladding, because this represents the largest area of the home exposed to the elements.

Austech's Range of Duratuff Select Vinyl Cladding has been tested to withstand the harshest conditions the Australian climate can throw at it. Duratuff Select has the exclusive Windlok 180 feature. This gives exterior wall cladding the ability to withstand winds up to 288 km/h (180mp/h), making it the recommended siding for wind prone areas.

The New Jane Foss Russell Building at the University of Sydney has recently opened its doors to staff and students. The building is designed to raise the bar in green building. It has many green features, including Foamular Extruded Polystyrene Insulation and has achieved a 5-Star Green Star Rating

Foamular Extruded Polystyrene was used for a roof membrane system and under the Main Plaza. 4500 meters square of Foamular was used throughout the project. 60 mm Foamular was chosen which gives an R-value of two.

The building uses chilled beams throughout to cool the building as an alternative to air-conditioning. This is an Australian first and is expected to reduce overall electrical consumption by 30 %.

Foamular Extruded Polystyrene has always been a versatile product. It has been used for roof membranes, render substrates, insulation inside precast concrete slabs and model trains.

Foamular's versatility comes from its manufacturing. Extruded Polystyrene is a closed cell structure that once manufactured maintains its rigidity, does not absorb water and maintains its insulation values.

Many Model Railroad builders have successfully used Foamular as a baseboard for their creations. Mike Nagle, Austech's Product Manager for Foamular has said "We get calls almost every week from avid railway creators who have seen other models with Foamular and want to recreate the realistic terrain".

Outback Steakhouse in Figtree has opened after extensive renovations and a large addition using Craft Stone. The façade has been renovated with stone wall cladding and the stone work continues inside with an interior stone wall behind the bar and stone pillars throughout.

Stacked Ledgestone was used throughout the project. The owners wanted a striking and remarkable feature entrance, so they chose to blend two differentcolourstogether, creating a unique display found nowhere else. Caramel and Cabernet where chosen to be blended together because of their complementary earthy tones.

There has been a decline in recent years of patronage in traditional steak houses. Outback has noticed this and is in the process of rebranding its business. Outback Steakhouses are aiming to be more family and quality focused, with healthy options and good service.

Vinyl cladding has become Australia's preferred form of exterior wall cladding because of its durability, ease of installation and its cost effectiveness.

Duratuff Select is a premium exterior wall cladding that has set the benchmark for quality in the vinyl-cladding market.

"Austech has been selling vinyl cladding for over 20 years, and we are looking forward to working with Royal Building Products, a company that can match our experience and deliver the quality products that our customers need" saysTony Curran, General Manager of Austech.

Austech is introducing a new product range from Expol , giving a smart solution to the problem of under floor insulation in the new homes that can also be retrofitted into existing homes.

The new range of insulation meets and surpasses current Australian standards in under floor insulation, with an R-value of 1.4 when used under a typical wooden floor. This means a saving of 12% on the average households heating bills.

Expol insulation had been designed to last, and as a result comes with a 50 year warranty.

Austech's range of CraftStone has been chosen as the backdrop to the Chrysler Jeep Exhibit at the Sydney Motor show.

"CraftStone is a premium product so it's no surprise that Chrysler Jeep chose it as the backdrop to their range of prestigious cars" says John Hansen,Austech's stone product executive.

Chrysler chose the range of Vintage Ledgestone in Alpine as the backdrop because it made a fantastic comparison with the cars and gave the exhibit a stylish atmosphere.

Gable Vents are often seen as a cost effective simple way to improve the exterior appearance of a home, however they also play an important function in home ventilation and energy efficiency.

Duraflo Gable Vents offer a striking design accent for your home with a deep wood grain finish for the appearance of real wood without the maintenance.

With a number of shapes to fit all designs, Duraflo adds quality and enhances the look and functionality of any building.