Larch cladding - is this a defect?

[andyscotland]

Was looking round my MiL's almost-complete extension yesterday and spotted a cladding plank that has quite pronounced shakes/splits compared to others.

 

I've not seen enough cladding up this close to know if this is reasonable, I know timber is natural and will split a bit but this one looks quite pronounced, it's the only board like it so really sticks out if you actually look at the wall.

 

Obviously just don't want it to develop into a bigger crack.

 

Would I be unreasonable asking the joiner to replace it?

 

There's also quite a lot of nails that are not fully home (head sitting a few mm proud of the surface) - they gun nailed it and I think under-drove them. You can see two examples on the left hand board. Is it fair enough to ask him to tap them in?

 

 

Edited August 16, 2020 by andyscotland

[nod]

I’m not a cladded but was recently asked to step in over lockdown and clad 4 houses We also encounter planks with splits like yours They seemed to be just on The surface So we used them on less obvious places or for cuts 

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect the contractor to go round with a punch and drive those nail heads in They shouldn’t be like that The trims around the openings would have looked better  with a mitre also 

 

[gc100]

I’ve just painted about 200 6m lengths of larch. There are plenty with big cracks/split . It’s wood, so happens all the time as it drys out .

[iSelfBuild]

1 hour ago, andyscotland said:

 

 

 

 

The window head board looks like it sits directly underneath the cladding, when you have driving wind and rain won't it run down the cladding above and track back into the property or is it angled?

 

It's not uncommon for the larch to split and crack when drying out. We screwed all of our cladding so we can remove each piece. Eventually going to replace a few boards that have bad splits but there is not many.

 

I did the window head like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Thedreamer]

1 hour ago, andyscotland said:

Was looking round my MiL's almost-complete extension yesterday and spotted a cladding plank that has quite pronounced shakes/splits compared to others.

 

Normal to have splits and cracks. If your house is completely covered with larch then your find that different elevations will adjust differently to it's new surroundings.

 

South more prone to splits and cracks from Sun/UV and the North might develop some black mold spots. 

 

Are you planning to treat the wood? We were going to leave it to sliver naturally but decided to used Osmo oil with a pigmentation.

 

 

[Gone West]

6 hours ago, iSelfBuild said:

The window head board looks like it sits directly underneath the cladding, when you have driving wind and rain won't it run down the cladding above and track back into the property or is it angled?

Yes I agree that isn't very good against driving rain and I have done ours in the same way as you have.