What sort of cladding/render have you used on your ICF build?

[Meabh]

We have approved planning for our home (to be built out of ICF) and the exterior is partly white brick and partly black wood cladding. We don't want to use white render as we are surrounded by white rendered houses and our ICF builder has pointed out it can sound a bit hollow when you knock on the wall of a home that is rendered directly onto the ICF block.

 

I've become concerned about the black wood as I have noticed a house in our town that has black wood cladding....but when you look at it in certain directions you can see through it  - not helped by the silver foil under it.

 

Has anyone used dark wood cladding on ICF? Did you paint it first so that the light ICF block doesn't show through?

Has anyone used metal cladding on ICF blocks?

Has anyone used bricks or brick slips to clad the ICF blocks?

 

Any info tips greatly appreciated

 

Thanks

 

 

[Tom]

We're going to be using a mix of black corrugated steel and black charred wood on our Nudura build. Would also be interested to hear what others experiences are with wood cladding as we will be having gaps between the boards. I was planning on just using a black membrane behind.

[Russell griffiths]

I think you are looking at something poorly done and think it’s all like that. 
why can you see through the wooden cladding ? Obviously it must be an open joint system, in which case they have obviously used an incorrectly specified membrane. 
do you want open joint cladding? 
Icf can be covered in what ever you want, you then just use the correct mounting system. 
there should be no reason you can see a reflective membrane under it and I hope for their sake it was all taped up or they will have all manor of creatures living in it. 
pic is timber on Icf. 

[Meabh]

5 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

I think you are looking at something poorly done and think it’s all like that. 
why can you see through the wooden cladding ? Obviously it must be an open joint system, in which case they have obviously used an incorrectly specified membrane. 
do you want open joint cladding? 
Icf can be covered in what ever you want, you then just use the correct mounting system. 
there should be no reason you can see a reflective membrane under it and I hope for their sake it was all taped up or they will have all manor of creatures living in it. 
pic is timber on Icf. 

Thanks - the house I have seen isn't an ICF house. I've also seen a couple of black clad homes that you can't see through. It's not so much that there are gaps but from certain angles/lights you can see the the outline of the cladding & the batons behind - and what appears to be the light membrane behind.

 

I guess I'm asking - if you use dark timber cladding on an ICF should you paint it black first?

[Nick Laslett]

24 minutes ago, Meabh said:

Thanks - the house I have seen isn't an ICF house. I've also seen a couple of black clad homes that you can't see through. It's not so much that there are gaps but from certain angles/lights you can see the the outline of the cladding & the batons behind - and what appears to be the light membrane behind.

 

I guess I'm asking - if you use dark timber cladding on an ICF should you paint it black first?

We are having the top half of one gable end clad with ash thermowood, in horizontal feather edge style. The rest of the house will be rendered with EWIPro Silicon render. We are not doing anything to the ICF before the cladding goes on. 
 

The ICF supplier will have construction details for all types of external finishes and what is required. 

Edited May 14, 2022 by Nick Laslett

[Russell griffiths]

12 hours ago, Meabh said:

Thanks - the house I have seen isn't an ICF house. I've also seen a couple of black clad homes that you can't see through. It's not so much that there are gaps but from certain angles/lights you can see the the outline of the cladding & the batons behind - and what appears to be the light membrane behind.

 

I guess I'm asking - if you use dark timber cladding on an ICF should you paint it black first?

I would and paint the battens black. 

[ToughButterCup]

26 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

I would and paint the battens black. 

 

Now he tells me: two years too late. Typical.

[Thorfun]

4 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

I would and paint the battens black. 

we were going to do this but as I've so far used nearly 3km of 2"x2" battens that would've been a s**t load of paint! in the end we decided to have a tongue and groove type profile for our charred cladding so that you can't see through it but also get a feeling of a shadow gap.

 

 

although we also used a black membrane as we were originally going to have an open cladding.

 

our build isn't ICF but as @Russell griffiths says you can put anything on top of ICF it shouldn't make a difference.

[Meabh]

On 15/05/2022 at 14:35, Thorfun said:

we were going to do this but as I've so far used nearly 3km of 2"x2" battens that would've been a s**t load of paint! in the end we decided to have a tongue and groove type profile for our charred cladding so that you can't see through it but also get a feeling of a shadow gap.

 

 

although we also used a black membrane as we were originally going to have an open cladding.

 

our build isn't ICF but as @Russell griffiths says you can put anything on top of ICF it shouldn't make a difference.

Gorgeous - would you mind me asking where you got your charred wood? I've been looking at a N.Irish company who do similar - toasted wood - but the price is just getting higher and higher

[Tom]

We got a quote for charred wood from Nakamoto Forestry, was a bit eye watering TBH so we will be reusing the boards the barn was clad with originally and will try burning them ourselves. What could possibly go wrong?!

[Thorfun]

3 hours ago, Meabh said:

Gorgeous - would you mind me asking where you got your charred wood? I've been looking at a N.Irish company who do similar - toasted wood - but the price is just getting higher and higher

we ordered through Permachar but it arrived direct from Lithuania from a company called Degmeda. problem is it's Siberian Larch so that is in short supply at the moment.