Board on board timber cladding - layout

[eandg]

Any restrictions on this - i.e. should you be aiming to have your external board butted against/not against window reveals and should this be consistent across the board, is it better to rip top board or to reduce gaps between them where they're not working in?

[Jenki]

This hand book is good, however doesn't answer your question.

I'm also thinking of how this detailing will work, one option I was thinking was to reduce the boards widths slightly between reveals of windows / door close to each other to get the base board at the edge of each reveal the same?  still not sure if this is the best way forward though.

TTF-Cladding-Handbook.pdf

[jamieled]

We reduced the gap between boards with boards beside windows and doors butting up with the reveal cladding. Needs relatively careful calculation to ensure you get the gaps right and so theres no obvious visible difference when viewed against the rest of the walls.

[saveasteading]

35 minutes ago, Jenki said:

hand book is good

Yes it looks great. Thanks for the link.

 

From a quick flick through it has lots of good info.

Not enough perhaps about clever detailing as the current question, or showing natural fading when it turns out scabby.

Lots of photos of beautiful work, in its newly built state. Fully coloured, no weathering and no shrinkage or warping. 

[Jenki]

I found the detail about reversing the Grain detail  of the top and bottom boards, interesting, and if honest opposite to my initial thoughts. EDIT_ sentence revised didn't make sense  

 

5 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Lots of photos of beautiful work, in its newly built state. Fully coloured, no weathering and no shrinkage or warping. 

 

The big worry of timber cladding - the unknown result with the passage of time. 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Jenki

[Jenki]

43 minutes ago, jamieled said:

We reduced the gap between boards with boards beside windows and doors butting up with the reveal cladding. Needs relatively careful calculation to ensure you get the gaps right and so theres no obvious visible difference when viewed against the rest of the walls.

@jamieled do you have any photo's of this detail?

[ProDave]

I remember cladding our sun room, a major part of the planning was setting the spacing between boards to work, meaning a different spacing on different walls, a bit like gauging a roof so a whole number of tiles fits the gap.

 

And I wanted to get a common detail around each window so an outer board comes up to the corner.

 

I painted all mine because I don't like the weathered "old wet shed" look.  One coat before fitting and one coat after fitting.

 

 

In this case the windows outer edge was only slightly back from the inner surface of the timber so just a small filler was used around each window and the outer boards overlapping over this filler.

 

Above the windows the bottom edge of the board was cut at an angle to make a natural drip bead at the outer edge.

[eandg]

9 hours ago, jamieled said:

We reduced the gap between boards with boards beside windows and doors butting up with the reveal cladding. Needs relatively careful calculation to ensure you get the gaps right and so theres no obvious visible difference when viewed against the rest of the walls.

So did you have the 'on board' sections (with full boards/other) butting against the reveals? I have lots of openings on a fully timber clad elevation and they're all a bit out of kilter (with first floor openings not meeting ground floor ones) and now wishing I'd thought of the detailing at the outset!

[jamieled]

@eandg, yes, but our design was simpler as our windows were similar sizes between ground and first floor so butting the 'on board' sections up to the reveals wasn't so difficult. You sound like you might have a trickier situation, but I'd imagine with some careful planning you should be able to get it to look ok. Differences in the spacing are only really visible if you look hard enough, at a distance I think it looks pretty consistent, even when it isn't.

 

@Jenkisee if these help you. The change in spacing is quite clear if you look hard enough, but it doesn't bother us, functions fine and nobody mentions it!

 

 

[Jenki]

26 minutes ago, jamieled said:

@eandg

@Jenkisee if these help you. The change in spacing is quite clear if you look hard enough, but it doesn't bother us.

@jamieled Thanks, looks great👍

[eandg]

23 hours ago, jamieled said:

@eandg, yes, but our design was simpler as our windows were similar sizes between ground and first floor so butting the 'on board' sections up to the reveals wasn't so difficult. You sound like you might have a trickier situation, but I'd imagine with some careful planning you should be able to get it to look ok. Differences in the spacing are only really visible if you look hard enough, at a distance I think it looks pretty consistent, even when it isn't.

 

@Jenkisee if these help you. The change in spacing is quite clear if you look hard enough, but it doesn't bother us, functions fine and nobody mentions it!

 

 

 

The TTF guidance says you should never nail/screw through an underside board - did you manage to avoid doing so in that arrangement or did it prove impossible to avoid? Not sure if it's much to get worried about.

[jamieled]

@eandg in general yes, because we had a 'typical' overlap, it was generally possible to avoid the situation you describe. However, I reckon there are probably a few areas where we reduced the board spacing which resulted in nailing through the underboards - if you don't then the surface nails need to be really close together which risks cupping the outer board.