If your property in Burwell is showing signs of failing or tired exterior cladding, acting early is the difference between a straightforward fix and a much costlier repair.
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Exterior cladding is a secondary skin fitted over the structural wall of a building. It keeps wind-driven rain from penetrating the wall, reduces heat loss, and gives the facade a clean, finished appearance. When it works correctly, most homeowners never think about it. When it starts to fail, the consequences can reach well beyond the surface.
This page focuses specifically on the warning signs that tell you cladding needs attention, and the underlying causes behind each one.
Timber cladding boards that have warped, cupped along their length, or split at the face are almost always suffering from moisture movement. Timber expands when it absorbs water and contracts as it dries. If the boards were not properly back-primed before installation, or if the finish coat has broken down on exposed elevations, the moisture cycle accelerates and boards deform.
Featheredge boards are particularly prone to splitting at the thin upper edge if the overlap is too small or if fasteners were positioned too close to the edge. Splitting here allows water to enter behind the board and sit against the battens. Left long enough, the battens themselves begin to rot, and the repair cost rises considerably.
A failing surface finish is not just an aesthetic problem. Paint or factory-applied coating on timber and fibre cement cladding is the primary barrier against moisture. Once it begins to bubble or peel - typically starting on south-facing and west-facing elevations where temperature swings are greatest - water gets underneath and the degradation speeds up.
Bubbling under the surface coat is often caused by moisture already trapped within the board at the time of painting, or by applying paint too thickly without allowing adequate drying time between coats. If you see blistering close to the bottom edge of boards, that usually points to inadequate clearance between the cladding and the ground, where splash-back keeps the lower section permanently damp.
Horizontal joints opening up between boards, or vertical gaps widening at the joins between panels, indicate the material has dried and shrunk beyond what was anticipated during installation. With natural timber, some movement is inevitable, but excessive gapping means either the boards were installed too wet, or the species used was unsuited to the exposure level on that elevation.
Composite and fibre cement panels are more dimensionally stable, but their joint sealants can harden and crack over time. When the sealant fails, water tracks behind the panels at the joint and can reach the breather membrane or the wall surface behind. Any gap you can see daylight through at an external corner or horizontal joint needs attention before winter.
This is the sign most people notice last, by which point the cladding has usually been failing for some time. Damp appearing on the inside of an external wall below a window or in a corner is a strong indicator that water is bypassing the cladding and either breaching the breather membrane or tracking around a poorly sealed window or door reveal.
Damp ingress behind cladding is different from condensation, which tends to appear at cold bridges like window frames and in corners at ceiling level. If the damp patch corresponds to the position of a joint, fastener, or penetration in the cladding, that is almost certainly the entry point.
Brown or orange streaks running down from fixings are a sign that the wrong type of fastener was used, or that the protective coating on the fastener has broken down. This is common on properties where the cladding has been in place for many years and was originally fixed with standard steel screws or nails rather than stainless steel or hot-dipped galvanised fixings.
Rust staining on timber cladding is more than cosmetic. The corrosion products react with the tannins in certain timbers, particularly oak and western red cedar, and can accelerate local degradation of the board around the fixing. If the fastener itself is corroding through, it will eventually lose its grip and the board will start to loosen or drop at the lower edge.
Most cladding failures have one of a handful of root causes, regardless of the material involved.
Soffits, fascias, and bargeboards are part of the same external envelope as cladding, and their condition is closely related. If fascia boards are soft or pulling away from the rafter feet, water is likely tracking down behind the cladding on the upper section of the wall. Check the joint between the top of the cladding and the underside of the soffit - this is a common entry point that is easy to overlook on a quick visual inspection from ground level.
Isolated split or warped boards can often be replaced on a like-for-like basis without disturbing the whole elevation. The test is whether the battens and membrane behind are sound. If the battens are soft or the membrane is torn, a partial board replacement will not solve the underlying problem and the new boards will deteriorate at the same rate as those they replaced.
A full re-clad makes sense when more than roughly a third of the boards on an elevation show defects, when the fixing system is failing across the whole face, or when the client wants to upgrade to a different material or add external wall insulation at the same time. We can assess which approach is appropriate during a survey of the property.
Supply and installation of new timber cladding typically falls in the range of £80 to £150 per square metre, depending on the species and board profile chosen. Fibre cement cladding systems generally run from around £90 to £180 per square metre installed. Metal cladding, including aluminium and steel panel systems, tends to start at around £100 per square metre and can go considerably higher for bespoke finishes.
These figures cover materials and installation on a straightforward elevation with standard access. Work at height requiring scaffolding, or stripping out rotten substrate before installing new battens and membrane, will add to the overall cost. Always get a detailed written breakdown before work starts so you know what is and is not included.
If you have seen any of the warning signs described on this page, call Cambridge Roofers and ask for a cladding survey. We will look at the full elevation, check the condition of the substrate behind, and give you an honest assessment of what needs doing and why - so you can make the right decision for your property.
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Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
