When distinguishing the quality of PVC plastic formwork, pay attention to avoid the following common misconceptions: 

01. Avoid fake formwork products: WPC/PVC foaming boards

WPC/PVC foaming boards are furniture/advertising /decoration materials, not formwork products.

They have different technologies, raw materials, processes, and applications as PVC formworks. 

To save costs, WPC/PVC foaming boards are manufactured with over 60% or even 80% calcium powder. Therefore, they have much lower costs, and easily get cracked.

In China, no projects use them for concrete formworks.

02. Avoid unqualified PVC formworks made of recycled PVC materials

To save costs, most suppliers use recycled PVC materials to manufacture.

The cost of such materials is less than 1/3 of the new and pure Plastic-steel PVC materials.

Since such materials are recycled from uncontrollable resources which contain too much impurities, they will cause serious deformation against sunshine and concrete pressure, such as big U shape or S shape and can’t hold nails.

But it’s difficult to distinguish from the appearance. Especially that some manufacturers add pigments to make it beautiful and disguise as qualified products.

So, be prudent when there is huge cost difference. 

03. Avoid new fake formwork products

The solution to solve deformation problems, is to manufacture with qualified raw materials, instead of creating new fake products.

From 2021 year, the markets were almost ruined by unqualified products. Too many customers were cheated and gave up. Gradually such manufacturers lost the markets and reputation. 

But qualified Plastic-steel PVC is too expensive to provide ideal profits for them, so new tricks appeared: manufacture new fake products which contains overmuch calcium powder to disguise as formwork products and lie that PVC formwork was failed. 

Some suppliers use PVC resins to manufacture, but add overmuch calcium powder as well. So, be prudent with new products appearing within recent 1-2 years. 

04. Avoid fake samples and wrong testing guidance

UV-resistance is not the only reference for quality judging.

Although WPC/PVC foaming boards are 100% UV-resistant to be non-deform under sunshine, they are fragile and easily getting cracked against concrete pressure, especially in low temperature.

To capture the initial interesting of customers, some manufacturers send samples of high density WPC/PVC foaming boards to you for deformation or some initial testings, but then manufacturing orders with overmuch calcium powder to save costs.

So, don’t take UV-resistance as the only judging reference. In any time, good reputation is always an important element to choose suppliers.

05. Color, density, or temperature isn’t the reason of deformation 

Unqualified raw material is the main reason of quality problems, rather than color, density or high temperature.

Some suppliers lie that light-colored PVC formworks or higher density can solve the deformation problem, such as white/yellow, because light colors absorb less UV/temperature. This is a lie.

If using recycled materials to manufacture, the PVC formwork will deform no matter it’s white or black color.

Because recycled materials contain the plastic additives which are not UV-resistant, so it bends under sunshine, no matter what temperatures or colors.

06. The best and most ideal density is 0.70g/cm³ 

0.70g/cm³ is the best density for PVC formwork, higher or lower doesn't offer the best performance ratio.

This is a well-known criterion from the first year of PVC formwork being invented until today.

Another serious quality problem caused by recycled PVC materials is the unqualified elasticity modulus, which is the reason of bending under concrete pressure. 

The olution to such problem is qualified raw material, rather than increasing density to be 800 or 900g/cm³. 

PS: to obtain higher density, need to add much calcium powder. Means, higher density brings higher profit to manufacturers, but worse performance ratio and higher purchasing cost to you.

07. Accurate density error range is important and necessary

Density should be a specific value and be marked explicitly, rather than un-marked or a wide error range. 

New and pure Plastic-steel PVC materials are stable and easy to control. So the density can be controlled within a strict error range.

But recycled PVC materials are just the reverse. Their original density is normally higher than standard 0.70g/cm³, so it’s difficult to control accurately.

PS: Wide density error range means wide controllable profits. Such as, there is max 7% density error between 0.71g~0.75g/cm³.

08. Density/weight influences product costs

The higher density, the higher weight, and so is the cost. 

Density is one the important elements influencing the product costs. One the basic of same formula and raw materials, the higeher density requires higher costs.

When you check the quotation sheets, we advise pay attention to the density, or weight. 

You may also judge this value from the loading quantity in one container.