Following complete window and door replacement of our bungalow, We’d like to complete the face lift by removing the upvc cladding that wraps around the porch area, and replace it with a smart looking wooden cladding.

Despite keenly admiring hundreds of grand design timber clad buildings, it would appear that I’m completely in the dark in how to achieve the look and locate the product.

Am I best served wandering into a local timber merchant, or are their specialists I should be seeking?

I’ve read that larch is great for its waterproof qualities, is it particularly pricey ? I don’t even have a square meter age worked out yet but it should be in region of 20-25sq mt. I like the idea of both horizontal or vertical presentation, and tightly packed or spaced apart.. Just no idea what I’m talking about generally. Any good resources out there?

iroko

Larch is naturally weather resistant, so no colouring from tanalising or need to hide under paint. Japanese larch is a bit pinker in colour than European larch, but both will weather to a grey.
Western red cedar is also very weather resistant, redder than larch and keeps some of its colour better. Douglas fir not bad either and has a very white finish, not sure of long term colour, probably a light silver.
All the above are softwoods, so better availability with less knots.

Various bunch of hardwoods, some wear well like oak and sweet chestnut, maples and planes could give some nice whites, but may require more upkeep.

You’ll probably want a more specialist mill to have the variety of species, upside of cutting to order though is you can have boards whatever size you want, my shed has 13″ boards to reduce the number I had to hang for example.

Iroko will be pricey and very heavy.

Perhaps search out Western Red Cedar – plenty of images online to give you ideas. Many of the images will be from merchants selling it. It’s not cheap by any means. But it’s a fairly contemporary clean looking timber.

Western Red Cedar. I have featheredge on my house. It’s been there for 60 years, never treated with anything.
In 4″ TGV it has a very clean look, totally knot free, golden fading to silver.
LOvely stuff with a nice niff too.

There have been a number of GD homes that have used Japanese Larch; there’s lots of it about, but it has quite a high silica content, apparently, so saw mills are reluctant to cut it. It’s very weather resistant, from what I gather from the programmes, and the outer surface can be scorched which helps improve the weather protection.
Coniferous timber like larch is better than hardwoods, because of the resin content as well.
http://www.wfbp.co.uk/files/Japanese%20larch%20and%20its%20innovative%20applications%20in%20construction%20%20Report%20Feb%2014.pdf

As said above Western Red Cedar is good. It last a very long time (natural preservatives in the wood) and is light, thus easier to work with and put up. Feather edge board would be good for cladding.

It’s quite a bright orange when freshly cut, almost pinkish. It fades quite quickly though to a lovely silvery-grey. It also smells great when it’s freshly cut!

Nothing much to add to the views above. I recently bought 55 m2 of oak cladding for our barn, and paid about £1200 delivered for it. Can’t recall if that was plus VAT or not. I used a firm called Venables Brothers in Shropshire who I’m happy to recommend.

Some pics of the job if you are interested… http://anacreinhampshire.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/the-barn-cladding-and-glazing.html

As above with the recommendations. The trick, if you’re going for feather edge boards, is orientating each board so as they dry and season in situ, they curl into the building rather than curl away. So either specify rift, or quarter sawn boards, or lay them heart out -or in other words, so the end grain pattern is concave.

Similarly, for horizontal cladding, one line of fastenings, using stainless steel screws or nails, or copper, about 35mm from the top edge of the boards, with a 50mm overlap, mitre the joins too.

Yes it’s **** expensive!

Try these guys. We recently used them for one of our projects.
https://russwood.co.uk

Have a look on here, they know their onions but charge for it.
http://www.vincenttimber.co.uk/

We use Prowood in warrington for Larch & Cedar as they are cheaper than the above.
We pay £4.20/LM + vat for ex 150 x 25 cladding (125mm cover width) & £3.90 ish for siberian larch.

There’s a few ways to clad. Feather edge is probably the easiest. Tongue and groove a bit neater. Waney edge for the rustic look. Horizontal is traditional but the grand designs style tends to be vertical boards. Vertical boards can also be staggered with alternate capping pieces. This is probably the classic GD finish but you need a big expanse for the look to work IMO. Timber options covered above but if budget is an issue then Yorkshire boarding is the cheapest. Might be a bit rough though.

Some useful advice above, esp. Timber and Slackalice.

Simply for ease of use/sustainability reasons I’d advise using a native timber which is reasonably durable without treatment, and the obvious two are larch or oak. Depending on where you are in the country will affect the availability and cost of native timbers, but most areas should have readily available supplies of larch (note that current larch disease outbreaks may affect supply but not necessarily in a negative way) which seems to be the go-to timber that most people seem to be specifying nowadays. Not as passé as Iroko, or perhaps Western Red Cedar (both of which are imported and were the previous fashionistas choices). Others such as Douglas Fir are obvious options (though native-grown quality of this is less desirable than imports) but several species could be made to work if detailed well. Worth bearing in mind that in UK climes everything will weather down to a silvery-grey which will be variably uniform/coloured depending on species. So I wouldn’t bother looking out stuff like maple or plane (the qualities of both are wasted outdoors if you ask me).

A few things to consider…
– In general sapwood is less durable and more prone to insect attack than heartwood so consider this in specifying.
– The existing construction may suggest a particular approach to the design specification. While your main decision may be aesthetic, choosing a particular cladding approach that is more or less open than others will have implications for exposing UV and moisture to building fabric. If this is an issue for the building you’re cladding you can minimise it by your cladding approach, or installing a membrane/appropriate drip details etc.
– Ventilation. Most detailing approaches should allow for ventilation behind (and/or through) the cladding. This ensures the cladding can dry more evenly than if only one surface/area is exposed to rain/damp, and ensures the rest of the building fabric can breathe where necessary. Typically this is achieved by fixing the cladding to battens which in turn are attached to the existing structure.
– Openings/Junctions. Make sure you have good detailing around any openings (doors, windows, sills), corners and junctions. Otherwise you’ll find that the natural movement and staining is uneven and unsightly.
– Fixings. Generally avoiding ferrous fixings is suggested as they can cause staining. This could be manipulated if you like the effect this produces but otherwise stainless are the way to go.

Big players like Russwood (see post above) have good sites and a good name, but in many areas of the country you might find a local yard to you can supply the timber you want from locally produced stocks at a lower cost (and less transport) which is the way to go IMO.

brilliant – thanks you lot! – many useful links. I must say, the western red cedar conforms to my minds eye – the Russwood link has loads of great finishes though.

I’ll post a picture later of the (modest) porch area in question – happy to take your thoughts on board orientation. I may-well have over-estimated meterage required, hoping my bill won’t be eye watering.

I was envisaging using horizontal batons to hold the boards, and half a mind to leave a gap between each (vertical) board, say, an inch or so. This of course leaves the wood open to better aeration but would expose the ‘building’ behind. Does anyone have experience of how to best hide the interior surface from showing through the gaps?
I guess that membranes or natural matting of some description are used?.. or black paint!

slackalice – I note that one of our previous projects was based in West Sussex, which is where I happen to be.

If you are local do you have recommendations for particular timber merchants in the area?

Thought of this thread this morning. Some lads are doing some cladding outside this morning and this is how “behind” is best hidden.

Membrane is just black roofing stuff (remember no writing on it) and batons are painted with a black exterior wood stain.

If you do replace your maintenance-free cladding with wood, do be aware that it’s not maintenance-free nor will it last as long.

Interested

I’m in West Sussex and get my timber from WL west & sons between petworth and midhurst or I go to covers in Chichester. Both are very good and should be able to help you.

cheers DeadlyDarcy! (et al)

I feel a spurt of DIY approaching

If you do replace your maintenance-free cladding with wood, do be aware that it’s not maintenance-free nor will it last as long.

There’s a building near me, a library I think, that has wood all over it a la Grand Designs. I drove past it last weekend and noticed that it’s green and mouldy. Looks great. 😆

Another good one to look at is http://www.silvatimber.co.uk/

Hi slimjim, you could try West’s, Covers or indeed English Woodlands at Cocking, just by the SDW for materials.

Depending upon the finish you require from the supplier, if it’s rough sawn and green timber, then I would thoroughly recommend you give the Northway brothers, Doug and Wink, a call. They are in Milland and operate behind a farm in an open field with a very nicely modified American horizontal bandsaw. They used to supply me with all my green oak, larch, western red, fir, in beam stock, weatherboarding, stops and detail, boards etc. And they’ll deliver locally too. Always good on price and nearly all of their timber was English and cheaper per cubic foot than the mills above.

Contact numbers: 07960 462052 (Doug), 01730 890263 (eves). 07749 295048 (Wink)

EDIT: Talking of cladding, and I may have done this before, but if you want to see a nice example of some vertical cladding in red western cedar, Google gridshell at the Weald and Down Museum. It took three of us three months 😀

Just to add to the mix, thermally modified English ash and sycamore is now available. Thermally modified timber is becoming a standard cladding material across Europe, we are just starting down the road. The heat process makes non durable hardwoods like ash into highly weather resistant and stable timber for external applications, having failed chemistry O’level I’m not really in a position to comment on how other than it’s something to do with pyrolysis.
Both Tyler hardwoods and Vastern Timber are stocking the material and look up Sylva Foundation for an example of newly installed cladding. There’s the added bonus of matching an undervalued Uk hardwood with a new low-input treatment technology and helping a UK hardwood sawmill of which there are precious few left around. I’ve just got 30 square meters to use as a kitchen floor; it better be as good as I’m making it out to be!

The thermally modified stuff is pretty good, we did some test work with Wentwood Timber a few years back, supplied them with a load of Alder, which kept a lovely red colour, process of baking kind of shrinks the timber and caramelises the cellulose in it was the basic way they explained it. Timber comes out with a far closer grain than it went in with.

No recommendations for mills down your way, only stuff we send south east is Grandis Fir.

Plenty of good quality UK Western Red and Douglas, particularly from the smaller estates, which tends to be bought by the smaller mills.

Something like this?We used autoclave pine because larch and western red cedar were more than a little out of our budget.
I really like the contrast of the vertical and horizontal inside the porch. We’ll just have to see if the insect population like it even more in spring!

Cladding experts, do you have any thoughts on coloured finishes? We are about to get planning for a house with black-coloured timber cladding in Oxfordshire (matches the local barns) but not sure whether the cost of vacuum coating is worth it over staining etc. It will be horizontal boards, probably with a ‘rainscreen’ profile (definitely not featheredge!) I’ll probably give Russwood a call later but would appreciate any comments based on installation and experience.

Have used boiled linseed oil and white spirit on lots of green oak weatherboards and they started off a gorgeous deep honey, and slowly over the course of a few years, they silvered up and then darkened to now an almost black, some 10 years on. Do you think the council would wait? 😉 The solution did make them quite sticky for a while which made fitting them a tad messy, but we were on a timescale and the stickiness gradually went.

IMHO 🙄 @ councils and their peculiar planning demands. If they want their buildings to conform and be black, like they used to be when we typically used Elm for weatherboarding, they need to get hold of the resistant strain of Elm and start planting!

As far as your situation, I would have thought you could have untreated boards and protect them yourself with the stain of your choice on both sides of the boards before fitting. Bit of a maintenance chore though.

Aside from material choice and what pattern or orientation you’re applying it – I’d have a look at other buildings that have bedded in and how the design of the building influences the cladding.

When the wood is fresh its got a warm colour to it, it’ll then weather to grey, but not necessarily evenly as under the eaves, and in sheltered corners it won’t weather as fast or at all, and there tends to be quite a distinct dark fringe between the two – a patchy mishmash of pink/orange and silver/grey has the potential to be pretty ugly.

Replying only to bookmark an excellent thread. Just submitted drawings for pre-planning enquiries for a single story extension to be clad in vertical boards.

Can’t wait to get into the detail..!

So I visited English Woodlands mill a few days ago and picked up a few samples plus spoke about cutting list and pricing. I must say that I could have spent literally the entire day wandering (and wondering) around the place looking at all the different cuts in various states of drying – the natural qualities of the different woods were simply breathtaking.

As things stand we are looking likely to go for Western Red Cedar due to a combination of reasonable price, weathering qualities and its lovely uniform crispness when cut.
I’ll post a few pics when the project gets underway.

I do have another question for the wood experts. Whilst at the mill I sourced a lovely 2m piece of waney edged Oak for use as a side/ top mantle in our new bathroom. It’s cut to size and a loose fit confirms that it’s going to look great, my job now is to neaten up the waney edge slightly to remove the loose bark and then treat suitably for use in bathroom/humid area.

I’ve read that I need to ideally use polyurethane varnish to seal the wood – and a good several coats at that. I’ve also read that oil based poly will add an amber hue to the finish – whereas water based poly will dry crystal clear.
I’m interested in preserving the original finish of the wood as much as possible hence an unstained and matt finish would be ideal. However, due to its loation I think an oil based product would possibly be best..

So, can you recommend products you may have used and best way to achieve a high quality finish?
The wood will be in a frequently humid location but we will do our best to wipe away any standing water if it were to get onto the surface.

Oh, also, what the best way to fix the ‘plank’ in place to help prevent warping but hopefully reduce chance of splitting?
It is to be fitted atop a boxed and tiled section – so essentially sat on top of two lengths of 3×4 timber.
I’m thinking about counter sinking 6 holes on the plank surface and fixing in place with SS screws, then back filling the hole voids with a small ‘peg’ of oak, and filing back down to surface level. However, what would be ideal is a way to remove the plank easily if ever needed, as the plumbing for sink taps and cistern are located within the void below.

I did a cabin in the back garden with wood cladding. For cost I used tanalised log lap and then colour coated it.

Name Quantity Price
22×125 Tanalised Loglap Timber Cladding 270 £402.30

Picture of treated but uncoloured wood

Picture after colouring with protecting colour wash

@ slimjim, a few questions for you re your waney edge oak shelf thing. How thick is it? How well seasoned is it?

Both reasonably important as far as your queries.

If it is reasonably well seasoned, then I’d personally go for a wax finish, I suggested Bourne Traffic Liquid Wax to someone the other day asking about internal oak doors. I’d do the same for your proposed application too.

If the board is still seasoning, or green, then I personally wouldn’t fit it yet, it’ll do what it wants to do, depending upon which part of the log it was cut from, knots etc as it dries. These tendencies are exaggerated when the drying process is faster, due to inside a centrally heated house.

If you try to fasten it with more than one row of screws (your s/s screws and oak pellets is a fine idea btw, just use a Forstner drill bit to remove the pellet if you need to get to the screw in the future), if the board is green, it will likely split, so try and use just one row and orientate the board as per cladding, i.e. heart out or up in this case, if you can, although the board might be cut from the other side of the log, if you follow?

Top tip for removing the excess from pellets is to use a sharp chisel btw, rather than a file! 😉

Thanks slack – i’ll post a picture up later this evening of board and proposed location.

I didn’t ask specific age of this board but it came from the main part of the mill where all the lovely well seasoned (and pricey) boards are stocked.
The chap mentioned that most stock is likely to have been seasoned for up to 2 years dependent on variety.
How do I tell?… It has the look and feel of a seasoned piece to me, but i’m about as far from expert as possible.
Actually, I think I have a moisture sensor probe knocking around somewhere from back when I had a wood burner..

I think its around 27mm thick. Could be 32mm. I’ll double check.

I made a mirror from waves edged oak a few years back and finished it with Osmo Polyx – was surprised how well it worked on the raw bark sections. Copes well with moisture (big advantage of waxes being that you can patch repair)

So here’s the board in question, and boxed section to be fixed to.

Actually we’ve wooden shelves in both the last house and just installed in the new place. All finished with Osmo Polyx and it’s fine. The one thing it doesn’t like is toothpaste (electric toothbrushes being the culprit)

Interestingly I picked up a couple tins of Polyx from the timber yard for sealing some new internal oak doors. Are you sure it’s robust enough for sealing this board in the bathroom? It’s likely to be subjected to a fair amount of moisture/humidity

Anyone? Before I go slapping this Polyx on..