Construction site banners and signs: what to order for each job.

Site signage at a glance

The fence line

The fence is the biggest blank space on most sites, and usually the first thing the public sees. It is where your company name, the project name and a contact number belong.

For temporary fence panels, order Heras fencing banners. A single banner is 3375 × 1780mm, which sits just inside the frame of a standard 3.5m × 2m panel. You can also order:

• Multi-panel runners that span two, three, four, five or six panels in one piece.
• Vehicle gate pairs for 4.2m and 7m gates.
• A 1m pedestrian gate banner, with the bolt on the left or the right.

They are printed on mesh, which lets roughly a quarter of the wind pass through, so the fence is not turned into a sail. The material is M1/B1 fire rated. There are two mesh options, and AirMesh Polyester is the PVC-free one, which matters if the site has rules that exclude PVC. Choose angled top corners for round-top panels and square corners for flat-top ones.

Where the banner has something solid behind it, a 440gsm PVC banner is the usual choice. It is made to the width and height you enter, printed on one side, and finished with hems, eyelets or pole pockets. The material is flame resistant to DIN4102. On an exposed, windy site, choose mesh instead.

How a banner is tied on affects how long it lasts. For outdoor banners we recommend bungee ties over cable ties, because they stretch with the wind and take strain off the eyelets.

The entrance and hoardings

Signs at the gate and on hoardings need to stay flat and readable, so these are jobs for rigid boards. We sell three, and the right one depends on how long the sign has to stay up.

• Fluted board, better known as Correx, is the light plastic board used for site signs and estate agency boards. It is printed on one or both sides, made to your size up to 2.44 × 1.22m in one piece, and can be stuck, screwed, nailed or riveted in place. Order it with 5mm drilled holes if you plan to tie it to a fence. It is the economical choice for temporary signs.
• Aluminium composite, often known as Dibond, is a rigid 3mm panel of two aluminium sheets around a polyethylene core. It is weather-resistant and made for signs that stay up, so it suits the main site board on a long project. It comes in sizes up to 2.44m × 1.22m per sheet.
• PVC foamboard, often called Foamex, comes in 3mm or 5mm and is light enough to mount with adhesive or double-sided tape. It is M1/B1 fire-rated. It suits information boards in and around the site office, and with dry-wipe lamination you can write on it.

One honest caution on foamboard. It can expand in heat and direct sunlight, and can warp if it is fitted tightly inside a frame. For a board in full sun for months, aluminium composite is the safer pick.

For a hoarding larger than one sheet, several boards are butted together. Tell us the dimensions and we will plan the layout.

The pavement and car park

Some messages have to stand where there is no fence or wall to fix to: a diverted footpath, a delivery entrance, a show home that is open.

An A-frame sign does this. Ours has a collapsible aluminium frame that holds an A1 or A2 poster on each side, behind a weather-resistant protective sheet. The two sides can carry different designs. You can order the frame with two posters, the frame only, or the posters only, so when the message changes you replace the posters and keep the frame.

In a car park or on a forecourt, printed bollard covers turn each bollard into a sign that reads from several directions. They are made from 4mm Correx, in triangle or square shapes and three heights: 800mm, 1000mm and 1200mm. They lock together with interlocking tabs, arrive flat-packed, and come apart undamaged, so one set can be used again on the next site.

Temporary notices

Sites change week by week, and so do the notices: a new delivery route, changed working hours, a road closure date.

• For a notice on a fence or post, a small fluted board with drilled holes is quick to fix and take down.
• For hoardings and display frames, outdoor posters come in sizes from A5 to A0 and you can order a single poster. Be realistic about paper outdoors: the blueback option is water-resistant, not waterproof, and is made for short campaigns of around four to six weeks.

A note on safety signs

We print signs. We do not decide which safety signs a site must display. Your own risk assessment and the law decide that, and HSE publishes the guidance. Once you know what you need, send us the artwork or the wording and we will print it on the material that suits where it is going.

If the question is how each material stands up to rain, wind and sun, read our guide to weather-resistant site signs. To see everything in one place, browse banners and signage.