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What length screws for battens?


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Next stage in the exterior of my house is to fix the 50x50 battens horizontally over the top of the 25x50 vertical counter battens. This will create a ventilated drainage space and provide the  structure that the vertical board-on-board larch cladding will be nailed to.

 

Before I go and splurge out on a few boxes of these (150x6mm screws) is there any sort of rough rule of thumb etc I should be considering for choosing what length of screws to use? My gut feeling is that, with 75mm thickness of battens to pass through, I should have the same again going into the studs. There are going to quite a lot (over a thousand, from my BOTE calculation) of these screws going in so I could easily end up spending a fair bit on this if I over-spec, but on the other hand I don't really want my walls to fall apart either :o

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Can't  help advising on lengths etc but is it worth looking elsewhere for the screws? I posted this before about the place my mate got bulk screws for his large decking project. You can translate the link page to English:

 

This was the company my mate used:

 

https://www.klokow-gmbh.de/

 

He wrote:

 

"This is the company I got the spax decking screws off. I found they were really good and delivery was rapid as well. "

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The 25x50 battens are fixed with 50mm nails, put in by gun.

 

Screwfix have some 1000 packs of 100mm screws on special at the moment.. very tempting but that leaves only about an inch going into the studs...

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7 minutes ago, Crofter said:

The 25x50 battens are fixed with 50mm nails, put in by gun.

 

Screwfix have some 1000 packs of 100mm screws on special at the moment.. very tempting but that leaves only about an inch going into the studs...

 

No different to the "inch" you've got attaching the 25x50s.....Nail gun will be quickest.

 

You can translate that page to English as I said. Should get the option automatically on the phone.

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Just now, DavidFrancis said:

This might be a stupid question, but why do you need 50x50 horizontal battens?  What's wrong with more 50x25?

I was advised that I needed 50x50 to give sufficient stiffness, since the battens are only supported every 600. You wouldn't want to lean against the wall and find it bowing! The 25x50 battens lie directly against the wall so are fully supported, and just provide a drainage gap.

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We actually used 200mm hexagon head screws to fix our vertical 50mm x 50mm battens to the framework, because they are holding 75mm of external wall insulation on.

 

Then we used 25mm x 25mm horizontal battens - which take the vertical larch cladding.

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14 hours ago, ProDave said:

I might have close on 300 or even more 150mm screws going cheap.
 

 

Could certainly be interested, but I'm budgeting on £10/100 from Toolstation at the moment, would you be able to undercut that?

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57 minutes ago, iSelfBuild said:

We actually used 200mm hexagon head screws to fix our vertical 50mm x 50mm battens to the framework, because they are holding 75mm of external wall insulation on.

 

Then we used 25mm x 25mm horizontal battens - which take the vertical larch cladding.

 

No counterbattens under those? Quite a different wall buildup to me, bet it'll be cosy though!

Did you chamfer the top edge of the battens?

 

My windows are in by the way, looking good!

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Nope, the 75mm XPS fits tight against the external OSB. 50mm battens screwed into the studs make them structurally strong enough to hang the larch cladding on the counter battens. Yes I'll take some detailed photos next time I'm on site.

 

Fantastic! Have you got photos? Did you manage OK with the slider? I have some adjustable fixing  brackets for the window cills that you can have for free if you like. They were quite expensive and my Dad has decided to not use them because the way the cills hook tight under the rebated lip on the windows.

Edited by iSelfBuild
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