PVC cladding v tiles

[kcj]

I'll be moving house soon. One of the houses I've looked at has some sort of PVC cladding on all of the bathroom and kitchen walls, as an alternative to tiling.

It doesn't look too bad, and I could certainly live with it for a while. I am a bit worried about how waterproof it might be though, around joins, fixings etc. Also, wouldn't condensation that might have formed on tiles if they were there, now maybe form unseen on the walls behind? Could the walls behind eventually become a permanently damp & mouldy mess, that I'd have no way of knowing about until they got into an awful condition?

Or am I worrying too much? As I say, I don't mind the look of the cladding, I just want to be sure it won't be slowly damaging the fabric of the house - Cheers.

 

[darkan9el]

I fitted some PVC cladding and it looked very nice, but I found it to be very brittle. If you trip and hit it with your hands - palms it will take the hit, but if you hit it with say your knuckles it will crack so bear that in mind, try and get some samples you can keep and try it out.

With regards to waterproofing, during install you run a line of silicone down the edge, so hopefully its not just butt jointed but sealed as well. Most people just put the silicone near wet area's i.e showers, sink etc but I did the lot.