Step 1: Choosing your timber
This project was the first of its kind to use our ThermoChar® ‘Snake-Skin’ ThermoWood Ash over the entire barn project continuing the same width board on the roof and following it down the vertical elevations. The guttering was obscured from view by extending the vertical boards up passed the guttering, which lined up with the roof boards. By using different board widths, it gives you a better chance of finishing with full board widths around windows and doors. This will create a project that is more interesting to look at.
Step 2: Go for mixed length boards
Board joins are never an issue if laid randomly because your eye will not pick up a pattern, and the joins will be lost in the overall visual appearance. With this project, because the distance from the ridge down to the gutter was 8m, it was easier to lay up by creating a middle join rather than fixing longboards that would still have required joining at some point.
The boards were smooth profiled and held in place using our ‘Invizifix’ clips, thereby having a 5mm open gap.
Step 3: Time to construct
The thick SIPS (structured insulated panels) made up the building envelope for the walls and roof. The roof was then covered with a thick waterproof membrane. This was then covered using a powder-coated aluminium roofing sheet in a W-section profile. The points of the profile are replaced with flat sections forming gullies and flat tops. This allowed any rain to drip through between the boards and into the gullies of the profile and run down to the guttering.
The flat tops of the profile then allow you to fix the cladding battens horizontally along the roof making sure that you silicone seal the area around the fixing where it punctures the aluminium. Then your vertical cladding boards are fixed to these battens.
With a bit of thought and pre-measuring, your boards will cover the high points where the cladding batten fixings are, and so your cladding board fixings will not clash.
Step 4: Maintenance
Cladding a roof adds something unique to a building as well as additional sound and insulation benefits.
The best timber material to use for this would be our very stable ThermoWood species due to the exposure a roof gets.
Choosing a very durable and stable timber in this way will not require routine maintenance as the rain will wash off any dirt if you have sensible roof gradients. It is in effect a rain screen cladding adding an attractive visual aesthetic as the aluminium roof sheeting provides the waterproof element to the building.
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