Millboard Advanced Installers: Who Has Earned the Third Stripe?
Millboard has recently introduced a new Advanced Installer tier, which sits above its long-established Approved Installer scheme and, at the time of writing, includes just ten installers.
First of all, congratulations to them. This is news worthy and should be shouted across all channels…
Millboard is a clever brand, it understands presentation extremely well, and this latest development is another good example of how effectively it communicates status without needing to explain too much. The existing Approved Installer badge is green and carries two chevrons, while the new Advanced Installer badge turns gold and adds a third.
There is something wonderfully military about it.
Those of us still carrying two stripes appear to be the Corporals, while the chosen ten have been promoted to Sergeant, although I am not yet aware of any requirement to salute them when they arrive on site.
Humour aside, there is a serious and genuinely interesting question behind the new scheme, because once a manufacturer creates a visible hierarchy between installers, everyone quite reasonably wants to understand what that hierarchy actually represents.
In simple terms, what does an installer have to demonstrate to earn that third stripe?
Approved and Advanced are clearly different
Millboard has not replaced its existing Approved Installer scheme.
The Approved network remains very much in operation and continues to represent installers who have received product-specific training and who are listed by Millboard as contractors familiar with the correct installation of its products.
The Advanced Installer designation sits above that.
Millboard describes an Advanced Installer as a professional who has been assessed against standards covering product knowledge, installation quality and compliance with Millboard installation guidance and best-practice requirements.
That is a positive development.
For many years I have argued that the decking industry needs to place far more emphasis on installation quality and technical competence, because even the finest decking board in the world will not compensate for a poorly designed or badly constructed structure underneath it.
The new designation also appears to carry enhanced warranty benefits in certain applications, so this is not simply a change of colour and another stripe on the badge. Millboard is clearly trying to create something with additional value for both installer and customer.
That should be welcomed.
Congratulations to the first ten
The ten contractors who have achieved Advanced Installer status deserve recognition.
If those businesses have undertaken additional training, demonstrated high standards of workmanship and satisfied further assessment criteria, then there is nothing wrong with celebrating that achievement.
In fact, the industry needs more of it.
Decking has changed enormously over the last twenty years. What was once often treated as a relatively simple timber platform at the bottom of the garden can now involve complex substructures, raised levels, integrated steps, balustrades, lighting, outdoor kitchens, spas, architectural detailing and substantial interaction with the surrounding landscape.
As projects become more sophisticated, the knowledge expected of the installer has to move with them.
Knowing how to install a particular manufacturer’s decking board is certainly important, but that is only one part of building a good deck.
What about the existing Approved Installers?
This is perhaps where Millboard’s new scheme becomes most interesting.
If an installer has worked with Millboard for many years, attended training, installed the product successfully and represented the brand well, it is perfectly reasonable for them to ask why they remain on two stripes while somebody else has moved to three.
That is not criticism of the ten who have been promoted. It is simply what happens when any organisation introduces a higher rank. People naturally want to know what the promotion criteria are.
Is Advanced status determined by the number of Millboard projects completed, the volume of product purchased, years of experience, customer satisfaction, site inspections, technical assessment or a combination of all those things? Perhaps it should be a combination.
Whatever the answer, I believe the pathway should be reasonably transparent, because the badge itself sends a very clear message to the homeowner. An Advanced Installer appears, quite deliberately, to have achieved a higher level of endorsement from Millboard than an Approved Installer.
That means the distinction has to be meaningful.
Installing the board is only part of the job
This is where I think the discussion should go beyond Millboard and become an industry question.
A decking manufacturer will naturally concentrate on its own product. It needs installers to understand board spacing, support centres, fixing positions, movement, edging, ventilation and all the other details that can affect product performance.
Quite right too.
However, the homeowner is not buying a collection of correctly installed boards. They are buying a completed deck.
That deck is a structure.
Underneath the Millboard, Trex, timber or any other surface material there may be foundations, posts, beams, joists, connections, fixings, steps, guarding and interfaces with buildings, all of which have to work properly if the deck is going to perform safely and last for a reasonable period of time.
This is where the phrase Advanced Installer becomes particularly interesting to me.
If somebody is being publicly identified as having an advanced level of decking competence, should that competence stop at the manufacturer’s installation manual?
I do not think it should.
Should Eurocode 5 and recognised standards form part of the scheme?
For timber structures, recognised structural design principles inevitably lead us towards Eurocode 5, BS EN 1995-1-1, together with the wider standards and guidance relevant to the particular project.
I am not suggesting that every small domestic deck needs an engineer sitting beside it with a calculator and a copy of Eurocode 5.
That would be ridiculous.
However, I do believe that somebody presented to the public as an Advanced Decking Installer should understand the principles behind structural loading, spans, support conditions, connections, durability, moisture management and appropriate materials.
They should also recognise when a project has moved beyond straightforward domestic construction and requires structural engineering input.
In many ways, that last point is one of the clearest signs of genuine competence.
An experienced professional does not need to know absolutely everything, but they should know when they are approaching the boundary of their own knowledge.
Product knowledge is not the same as construction knowledge
There is an important distinction here which the decking industry sometimes overlooks.
A contractor can become extremely knowledgeable about a particular manufacturer’s product while still having weaknesses in structural design or general construction.
Equally, a highly competent carpenter or structural contractor may understand timber engineering very well but still need product-specific training before installing a composite decking system correctly.
Those two forms of knowledge should not compete with one another.
They should work together.
If an Advanced Installer scheme can bring together excellent product knowledge, sound construction practice, recognised technical standards and consistently high workmanship, then it could become something genuinely valuable.
It would also give homeowners a much clearer indication of what they are actually getting when they select an installer carrying the higher badge.
The third stripe should mean something
Millboard deserves credit for putting installer competence, workmanship and better-built decking firmly back at the heart of the conversation.
The branding is clever, the hierarchy is immediately understandable and the idea of recognising installers who have demonstrated a higher level of competence is entirely sensible. The first ten Advanced Installers should also enjoy their promotion. The Sergeants have arrived.
For the rest of the Approved Installer battalion, however, the obvious question remains:
What do we need to demonstrate to earn our third stripe?
I think Millboard should make that pathway clear, not because installers need another badge for the van, but because transparency gives accreditation meaning.
If Advanced Installer status ultimately represents demonstrable product knowledge, inspected workmanship, technical understanding, good customer outcomes and an appreciation of recognised construction standards, then it could become a very worthwhile benchmark for the industry.
More manufacturers may well follow. That would be no bad thing. For me, though, the test is quite simple.
A third stripe should not merely mean that somebody installs more decking.
It should mean that they build better decks.
