Clad

We bought the cedar cladding for the timber frame several months ago, but the chippie has always had more important jobs to do. However, he's finally started putting the cladding on this week and has made good progress, hampered slightly by a torrential downpour yesterday.

It already looks great, and is good to see the black breather membrane that is on the outside of the timber frame, finally dissapearing after 6 months! We didn't think we'd be waiting that long for the cladding.

Along with looking good (we made sure we bought a square edged profile rather than conventional shiplap to give it a cleaner and more contemporary look), the cedar is another sustainable material and adds a little extra thermal and acoustic insulation to the outside of the walls.

There seems to be an obsession with masonry in the UK, and timber frames are still frowned upon for some odd reason. And it can't be anything to do with a cold or wet climate, after all timber frames are the construction method of choice for housing in the USA and Sacndinavia. Many UK timber frames are therefore clad in brick or blockwork so that they look like a 'conventional' masonry building. We could've done this for the timber frame extension, rendering it so that it looked just like the rest of the house. Instead we thought it would not only enhance the design of the house to introduce a different external finish, but by using timber it offers sustainability benefits. And what's really amazing is that the 20mm thick cladding has better thermal performance than a standard brick.