We have just been asked by one of our customers if it is possible to panel over existing panelling.
To be honest we were not sure about this one as we have never been asked this before!
The customer’s existing panels were still sound and in in good condition (which was nice to hear as we always promote the fact that they last for years with no maintenance) but she felt that they were starting to look a little dated so she wanted to freshen up the look of the room.
We always say the the panels are decorative not structural so fitting one on top of the other would mean that you are not fixing to a solid substrate. However the panels can be fitted to battens so on reflection the old panels would offer more solid support than fresh air so we felt that it would not be a major issue to fit them in this way.
Fixing items through the panels would probably be the only issue encountered but there are methods to overcome any problems – as seen in our online fixing instructions. I think if it was me I would remove the existing panels as they are usually reasonably easy to get off and the walls do not have to be a work of art to enable a perfect finish from the new cladding (unlike tiles).
We will report back on this if our customer decides to go for the panel on top of panel solution.
