If you are trying to budget for exterior cladding on your Great Thurlow property, understanding what drives the cost helps you plan and avoid surprises.
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Cladding is fixed to external walls, dormers and extension faces to protect the structure from rain and to change the appearance of the building. We fit and repair timber, fibre cement and composite cladding on homes, extensions and outbuildings in Great Thurlow and nearby villages, working from our base in Haverhill. The cost of a cladding job depends on several factors, and it is worth understanding each of them before you start getting prices.
Exterior cladding costs depend on the material, the complexity of the wall and the access needed. Prices vary widely because the variables are significant. Here is how the main materials compare.
These figures are for the boards and battens installed on a straightforward wall with standard access. They do not automatically include scaffold, repairs to the wall behind, or new flashings and trims at junctions with roofs or windows.
Access is one of the biggest variables in any cladding price. A ground-level extension can often be worked from a platform or tower. A dormer or upper-storey wall needs either a full scaffold or, in some cases, a mobile elevated platform. Full scaffold on a two-storey house can add £600 to £1,500 or more to a job, depending on the size of the elevation and how long it needs to be in place. On a dormer-only job the scaffold is usually smaller, but it still adds to the total.
If scaffold is being erected for another reason - a re-roofing job, for example - and cladding work is done at the same time, the scaffold cost is shared across both jobs. That can make the cladding work noticeably cheaper per square metre than doing it in isolation.
When old cladding comes off, the condition of the battens and the wall membrane behind it determines how much preparation work is needed before new boards go on. If the battens are sound and the membrane is intact, the new boards go straight on. If the battens are rotted at their fixing points, they all need to come out and new ones go in. That adds both material and labour cost.
A common problem on older installations is finding that there was no membrane behind the original cladding at all, or that a basic building paper was used rather than a proper breather membrane. Fitting a breather membrane to the wall before re-cladding adds material cost but is the right thing to do because it protects the wall from condensation and any wind-driven moisture that gets behind the boards.
A plain rectangular wall with no windows, pipes or other penetrations is the cheapest to clad per square metre. Every window opening, door, pipe or duct that passes through the cladding adds cutting and finishing time. Corner details, particularly on dormer cheeks where a roof slope meets the face of the cladding, take more time to flash and trim correctly than a plain corner. A wall with several windows and a complex roofline takes significantly longer than its square meterage suggests.
Within each material type, the profile of the board affects the price. Wider boards cover more area per board but may need a closer batten spacing to prevent flexing. Narrower boards use more fixings and take longer to fit. Some profiles, such as shadow-gap boards, involve additional trim sections at every course. Factory pre-finished boards in specific colours cost more than primed-only boards, but they save on the labour of painting on site.
If boards arrive unfinished and are to be painted on site, labour time and material cost for primer and topcoats needs to be in the budget. Two topcoats on new timber cladding is standard. Pre-finished boards skip this cost at the installation stage but may cost more per board. On a large elevation the painting cost can add 10 to 20 per cent to the overall job cost, so it is worth asking which approach the contractor is pricing.
Doing cladding work at the same time as other roof or scaffold work is the most straightforward way to reduce cost. If a section of cladding has failed but the rest is in reasonable order, targeted repair of the damaged boards is cheaper than a full reclad. Using softwood rather than hardwood, and choosing a pre-primed board that needs only a topcoat on site, are both ways to manage spend without compromising the quality of the installation.
Getting the work done before deterioration spreads also matters. A single failed board that is replaced promptly costs far less than waiting until the surrounding boards and the battens behind them are also affected.
For any cladding quote, ask whether it includes scaffold, whether it covers any batten replacement found necessary on opening up, and what fixings are being used. Stainless steel fixings cost more than ordinary steel but do not corrode and stain the board face. Ask whether back-priming is included for timber boards - it should be a matter of course, but it is not always done. Ask whether the quoted price covers the trims and flashings at junctions, or whether those are an additional item.
Getting clear answers to these questions before you agree anything means the final bill matches the quote rather than exceeding it. If you are planning cladding work on a property in Great Thurlow or nearby, call us to arrange a proper inspection. We cover the area from our Haverhill base and can go through the scope and costs with you before any commitment is made.
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