Mayfield – Your Decking Questions

Frequently Asked Questions: We aim to provide the answers to all of your questions. If the below information doesn’t answer your questions, please do get in touch with our team who will be happy to help.

Decking FAQs

We want to be as confident as you are that the decking for your static caravan or holiday home will look attractive for many years to come. To ensure we achieve this, we never cut corners and always offer the best products at the most competitive prices. When you decide to buy decking, always take time to look beyond the price and ask the following decking questions:

Yes, both Hampton and Focus decking is virtually maintenance-free, requiring only the occasional wash with soapy water.

Yes, even though there is no requirement to do this, we build all our sundecks to current building regulations.

Yes, as long as it’s within the park guidelines.

Yes, you can with the Hampton range, but not with the Focus range.

Hampton comes with a 12-year colourfast warranty and Focus with a 10-year Colourfast Warranty, with both coming with a one-year fitting warranty.

Decking Review 

To help you make an informed choice our decking review has been produced to explain in greater detail the many benefits of Mayfield products, including the extensive research and development involved, and the complex nature of the manufacturing process.

Because Mayfield understands that not everyone has the same budget to spend. Both Hampton and Focus have unique benefits and both are exceptional decking products.

Hampton decking is 148mm wide by 25mm in depth. This unique size is designed to incorporate our very special decking clip and give a pre-determined gap between two decking boards of 5mm, which is crucial for noise resistance.

The Hampton range is available in the following colour options:

  • Coconut Brown
  • Dolphin Grey
  • Cornish Cream
  • Seamist Green
  • Kimmeridge Bay Grey
  • Brownsea Brown

Within these colours there is also a wood type pattern effect to further enhance the finish – another unique feature of this incredible product. Hampton has been certificated to British Standard BS EN607.

Not only is Hampton decking colour stable, it is also is the only decking product to have passed and been certificated with UL94 V-0 fire rating.

The inner core of the decking is made from graded recycled uPVC. The grading has strict criteria in that it must come from a sustainable stock, have full recycle traceability, be the correct K-Value (stiffness of material) and have all the right resin ingredients such as impact modifiers and elastomers.

The surface finish (or cap as it is an industry known) is made using a very special blend of polymers which is a closely guarded secret of Mayfield. These specially formulated advanced polymers give the highest level of UV protection, allowing us to offer our customers a 12-year warranty against fading and surface whitening commonly found on many other decking products.

Focus decking is 236mm wide by 30mm in depth. Like the Hampton decking, this is also a unique size and has been designed specifically for the holiday home and static caravan industry. Focus decking uses the same special decking clip as the Hampton to give the same pre-determined gap of 5mm between the planks. This is crucial for noise resistance and the through-flow of surface water and waste debris.

The inner core shares similar qualities to the Hampton using recycled uPVC but with its own specific grading which is sourced from an alternative supply chain.

The surface finish is made using another special blend of polymers but has a unique ingredient which will not be found in any other decking products. Encased within the polymers are tiny spheres which are used to give a slip resistant finish. Although contained within the surface material, they are in fact an individual component which protrudes very slightly due to them being of a different melt-flow index (MFI), thus creating an almost sandpaper type of finish. A truly unique feature within the decking world and one that is not easy to replicate.

Focus decking is available in one colour option, Driftwood, which like the Hampton has also successfully passed British Standard BS EN607 accreditation and is certificated. Focus is an affordable decking product without all the ‘bells and whistles’ of the Hampton but still packs a punch with quality features and comes with a 3 year warranty.

We are able to offer long warranties from results we have achieved from accelerated weathering tests which have shown virtually no colour degradation from UV across Hampton’s entire colour range.

The Hampton and Focus deck clip is a very special little clip indeed. On the surface, it looks just like another deck clip but much thought and engineering has gone into the design and material used to make it.

On closer inspection, you will find tiny ribs along the inside of the clip which become deeper the closer they get to the centre. These hold the deck plank in place once fitted and prevent lateral movement. One side of the lower clip is longer than the other.

This sits flush under the decking planks to prevent the decking from ‘bounce’ which in turn prevents irritating squeaking noises (a common complaint with other decking products).

You will also see two holes in the clip. The central hole is the one used for fixing the clip to the substrate. Having a central hole allows individual planks to be removed post-installation if a plank needs to be replaced due to accidental damage. The second hole is a secret hole and very few Mayfield staff have been given the reason for its use (no joke!).

Mayfield uses in excess of one million of these clips annually and over the four years they have been used, none have failed. They cannot rust as they are made from incredibly robust thermoplastic plastic. They are virtually invisible due to being a side-mounted decking plank design and clear in colour.

They are the unsung hero of our decking system but are highly regarded in-house as one of the key components which make our decking systems the best in the industry.

 

LED Lighting Review

To help you make an informed choice our decking LED lighting review has been produced to explain in greater detail the many benefits of Mayfield products. Our review details the research, development and production processes involved in producing a safe, reliable, fully compliant, low energy LED light system for our market leading decking products for static caravans and other holiday homes.

  • Efficiency: Mayfield LED’s produce more light per watt than incandescent bulbs.
  • Colour: Mayfield LED’s emit light of an intended colour without the use of the colour filters that traditional lighting methods require. This is more efficient and can lower initial costs.
  • On/Off Time: Mayfield LEDs light up very quickly. A typical red indicator LED will achieve full brightness in under a microsecond.
  • Dimming: Mayfield LEDs are dimmable.
  • Cool Light: Mayfield LEDs radiate very little heat and are thus less prone to failure.
  • Lifetime: Mayfield LEDs have a long life – typicallly 50,000 to 100,000 hours.
  • Shock Resistance: Mayfield LEDs have solid state components which are extremely robust and can withstand external shock, unlike incandescent bulbs which are fragile.
  • Safe: Mayfield LEDs are low voltage and do not contain mercury.

LED is an abbreviation for ‘light emitting diode’. The diodes (or chips as they are commercially known), are small low powered units which omit small amounts of light. However, in multiples they perform excellent light outputs and are super energy efficient.

Yes there is. With LEDs you really do get what you pay for. We have ascertained this ourselves from testing all types of LED strips from around the globe from various manufacturers and narrowing it down to the ones we supply today which produce the best results for light outputs, efficiency and reliability.

The Mayfield LED lighting strips use a two-ounce copper core which is higher quality and more heat conductive than cheaper alternatives. This increases the longevity of the product by helping to keep it as cool as possible. Cheaper led strips use less copper making them less expensive to produce, but also more prone to failures due to heat degradation.

All of our LED strips use branded Samsung chips (light diodes) – that means that they are produced by world leading manufacturers with strict quality controls. It also means that the chips themselves are more stringently ‘binned’ which is a process of grouping them by colour temperature.

On poor quality LED strips you can sometimes see a difference between the colour temperature of the individual chips as you look down them giving variations of light. This is just a result of poor binning practices to reduce costs.

A lot and it is evenly distributed, unlike the light from a conventional post light. Multi-coloured LED strip (commonly known as RGB) varies hugely between manufacturers for light outputs.

Mayfield’s RGB LED strip have high-output powered chips in them and from our research have outperformed all other LED strips that we tested.

Tremendously. A 60 watt conventional Incandescent bulb for example is only an eight watt LED. Both produce around 800 lumens of light output but the LED costs around 15% of the price to run.

In monetary terms, if you were to light an average size Mayfield sundeck continuously for a year the LED would cost approximately £124, while a conventional 60 watt bulb system would cost £876 (based on current electricity rates).

Multiply this by 40 sundecks and this becomes a £30,000 p/a saving, hence another reason LEDs are becoming increasingly popular.

It is important when installing any lighting products that the IP rating is suitable for the application. Ingress protection (IP) is an international standard for classifying the degree of protection provided against the intrusion of items such as human contact, dust and water.

There are generally four types of IP ratings for LED strips. Ensuring that the correct level of protection is used will minimize safety issues and premature failure of the lights.

For example, installing an IP20 LED strip in an external environment will result in the product failing in a very short time. Here are the four most common IP ratings for LED strip:

  • P1– IP20 rated products are for internal use only. They have no protection against dust, moisture, or water.
  • P3– IP65 rated products are suitable for internal or external installation. The luminaire is protected against dust, rain, and low-pressure water jets. IP65 LED strip is coated in a silicone gel.
  • P4– IP67 rated products are the same as IP65 but are also suitable for temporary immersion in water. IP67 LED strips are enclosed in a silicone tube.
  • P5– IP68 rated products are the same as IP67 but are suitable for permanent immersion in water to a depth of 1m. IP68 LED strips use the same silicone tube as the IP67 tape, but it is injection filled with silicone.

Mayfield’s supplies both IP65 and IP67 LED strips. The reason for using two types is that a smaller diameter strip is required for our Clearview range (IP65). Both have been specifically chosen to integrate into our unique balustrade systems.

All Mayfield LED strip lights are now supplied in RGB as standard and come with a handheld remote control. The remote control is simple to operate and is packed with features such as a pallet of 16 colours to change the lighting to suit your evenings mood.

The remote control operates on a frequency of 433.92 MHz giving them an effective unobstructed range of between 40-50m. The pairing of the controllers and receivers is done via a ‘learn’ button located on the receiver itself. This matches the controller to the receiver on a specific pre-programmed channel.

If you installed several systems in close proximity, although they would be operating on the same frequency, they would only talk to the receiver set to the same channel. The controllers are pre-paired to the receivers direct out of the factory, so are configured ready to go

If you ask anyone in the lighting industry who manufacturers the absolute best quality LED drivers, Meanwell is the name that rings out. Meanwell drivers are generally regarded at the most reliable LED power supplies available.

The models we stock and supply are primarily double-insulated so that you do not require an earth when wiring it. They are also fully encapsulated with a waterproof IP rating of IP67. They incorporate protections for short circuits, overloading, and over voltage, as well as being 100% full-load burn-in tested

We carry a good working stock of all of our core products including LED strips, drivers, and controllers. All our national dealers have been fully trained in the installation of our LED systems, offering the complete installation service for LED integration with your Mayfield decking.

Mayfield’s Hampton balustrade handrails have been designed specifically for seamless LED strip integration with a cleverly designed concealed track along its underside which houses the LED strip.

This unique feature eliminates the strip from dropping which is a common problem seen in our industry. We pride ourselves on unique features such as this, adding to a list of quality features you will only find on Mayfield decking.

We have excellent working relationships with our suppliers and should a fault ever arise we will be quick to respond and resolve the problem with their added support. Mayfield offer a comprehensive two-year warranty on all parts and labour

Decking Timber Review

Mayfield’s decking timber review explains why we use timber substructures for our uPVC sundecks for static caravans and holiday homes.

Mayfield has been using timber in the construction of its decks for the past 26 years while the building industry has used it for a great deal longer and for good reason. Wood is the only truly sustainable material on earth and we can grow as much timber as we need from well-managed forests.

Using timber in construction is a great way to lock away carbon for long periods. Even when the wood is eventually recycled, it releases its carbon slower back into the atmosphere compared to new releases of carbon from fossil fuels used to make products such as steel.

So timber, being relatively newly grown and then returned directly to nature, is in effect ‘carbon neutral’. In addition, using local timber suppliers (which Mayfield encourages throughout their distributor network) dramatically reduces the miles to market, therefore reducing further environmental impact.

Softwoods are the most frequently-used timbers for construction. In order to comply with the building regulations, they must always be strength graded and put into a ‘Strength Class’. In the UK, softwoods are graded visually, in accordance with BS 4978:2007, or by machine to EN 14081:2005.

All Mayfield supplied timbers have been machine graded to achieve a minimum of C16 Strength Class and the timber is stamped accordingly. (An independent body audits and checks the strength grading machine to ensure that the C16 strength graded timber we use complies with current legislation and guidelines).

Using the correct timbers in construction is paramount to them being long-lasting. Our sundecks are built so that they have plenty of airflows circulating underneath them which prevents moisture build-up which can result in the timbers decaying.

We also have both high and low-pressure preservative treatments in our timber to increase long-term durability. In fact, Mayfield often comes across sundecks that are over 20 years old with very little signs of timber decay on the subframes. A testament to the quality of the timbers we use.

There are many advantages of using timber for the construction of our sundecks, which Mayfield has proven time and again. We can offer alternative products such as galvanised steel but they have drawbacks including rust, cost, environmental credentials and non-strength grading certification.

Revolutionary building materials are continuously being introduced which may offer advantages over timber, some of which Mayfield has explored and is developing for future products. However, for now, timber is the preferred choice of materials to use for our substructures due to its durability, sustainability and price.