Flexi 30 or Ultra 50: which clear PVC should you choose?
Video length: 4m 34s
Every Kuvr clear screen and tarpaulin is made to your exact measurements in one of two clear PVC materials — the Flexi 30 or the Ultra 50. They look similar on a product page, so this short video walks through the real, hands-on differences to help you pick the right one for your space.
What the video covers
The two materials differ in three ways that actually matter when you're choosing: clarity, thickness, and cost.
The Ultra 50 is a 550gsm clear PVC, roughly 0.5mm thick. It is the clearer of the two, so it's the natural choice for a leisure space you'll actually sit in — gazebo side walls, pergola covers and summer house screens where you want the view to be as crisp as possible.
The Flexi 30 is a 320gsm clear PVC, roughly 0.3mm thick. It's very slightly hazier but a bit more supple, and it's the more economical of the two. Both materials stay flexible in the cold, but the Flexi 30 is a little easier to handle — which is part of why it's such a popular choice for animal enclosures like rabbit hutches, aviaries, catios, chicken runs and kennels. On those you're often pulling the screen back to reach a door far more regularly than you would on a fixed gazebo screen, so the more supple, easier-to-handle material earns its place.
Neither material is locked to one use, and the choice is often a matter of preference and budget. For a leisure space you'll sit in, most people go for the best clarity and choose the Ultra 50. For a rabbit hutch, aviary or catio, some still choose the Ultra 50, but plenty go for the Flexi 30 to keep the cost down. Temperature plays a part too: both soften in warm weather, and the Flexi 30 is the easier of the two to handle when it's cold.
Quick rule of thumb
A leisure space you'll sit in (gazebo, pergola, summer house) → Ultra 50 for the best clarity. An animal enclosure you open often (hutch, aviary, catio) → the Flexi 30 is a popular, more economical choice.
Specifications at a glance
Ultra 50
550gsm · ~0.5mm thick · clearest option · firmer to handle · best for gazebo & pergola side walls, summer houses and other leisure spaces.
Flexi 30
320gsm · ~0.3mm thick · slightly hazier · a bit more supple · the more economical option · best for rabbit hutches, aviaries, catios, chicken runs & kennels.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference in thickness?
The Flexi 30 is roughly 0.3mm (320gsm) and the Ultra 50 is roughly 0.5mm (550gsm).
Which one is clearer?
The Ultra 50. Both are very clear, but the Ultra 50 has the edge; the Flexi 30 is marginally more hazy.
Which should I choose for a rabbit hutch, aviary or catio?
Either works. Many people choose the Flexi 30 for animal enclosures — it's the more economical of the two, and since you're often pulling the screen back to reach a door, the more supple material is a little easier to handle day to day. If clarity matters most to you, the Ultra 50 is still an excellent choice.
Can both be used for a gazebo or pergola?
Yes. The Ultra 50 is usually preferred for gazebo and pergola screens because of its clarity, but plenty of those covers are made in the Flexi 30 too. It comes down to preference and budget.
Full transcript
Hi guys — we're doing a bit of work outside at the moment, and I thought it'd be a great opportunity to show you the differences between the two types of material that we stock. The one on the right is the Ultra 50; the one on the left is the Flexi 30.
So, the Ultra 50 is a 550gsm clear PVC material, approximate thickness about 0.5 millimetres. The one on the left is a 320gsm material, roughly 0.3 millimetres thick. They're both PVC, but as you can probably see — just as I've been showing you — there is a difference in clarity between the two. The Ultra 50 is clearly the more clear material; the 30 is slightly more hazy, and that does kind of dictate application.
The very clear Ultra 50 is particularly suitable for home and garden applications like gazebo covers, pergola covers, things like that. And the 30 certainly does have home and garden applications, such as plant covers, kennel covers, chicken coops — it also has some commercial applications as well. It's quite often used for market stall side covers; it's also used in warehouses as pallet covers. Ultimately both of these materials have a huge variety of applications in home and garden and industrial/commercial work, and it isn't the case that one is specifically for home use and one is specifically for commercial. It really comes down to personal preference, and also budget to some extent.
The other key difference between these two materials is what we call suppleness — that really comes down to how soft the material is. You can see the 30 is very supple, and it remains very supple even in low temperatures like we have right now (it's actually just started snowing outside again). The 50 is a much harder material — it's certainly still flexible, but less so than the 30.
They are both flexible materials, and they can both be rolled and folded up, but especially in the lower temperatures this stuff is a little bit harder to manage, which makes it slightly more suitable to be left in place — installed in things like summer houses or pergolas — or to be rolled up when the weather is good. With all clear materials like this, temperature makes a huge difference. In warmer temperatures both materials become more flexible, including this one, which is quite solid and rigid at the moment; you'll find in hotter temperatures it becomes easier to manage. Same with this one.
But the advantage of the 30 is that in low temperatures like now, it remains really flexible and easy to manage, which makes it perfect — and quite often preferred — by people like market traders, or people who are working outside in cooler temperatures, where maybe at the end of the day they're taking the thing down and they need to fold it up quickly and throw it in the back of a van. Or even if it's a chicken coop outside in the winter and you need to push it back to get to the coop door, or some kind of kennel — it's easy to move around. Whereas this one is a bit tougher, a bit harder to move so easily. That said, we've done plenty of chicken coops out of that particular material, plenty of kennel covers; and similarly we've done gazebo covers out of this material as well.
Hopefully that gives you some idea of the differences between the two materials. If you have any more questions, please drop us an email, send us a message, give us a phone call — we can do a video like this if it helps explain things. Thanks very much.
Ready to order?
Configure your own custom clear screen or tarpaulin and choose your material on the clear tarpaulins & screens product page.
▶ Watch all of our explainer videos in one place on the Kuvr video library.