Cladding Conundrums

This weekend, we begun cladding and fitting the windows into place. This is the second-to-last job that we have to do on the exterior of the house (the last being the guttering and flashing for the roof). Tom’s mother, Jo and her partner Colin are down for the next fortnight to help us out, so we will hopefully get a lot done during this time. The two of them, along with Tom, managed to get most of the horizontal battens finished on the Friday, completing the job on Saturday morning. After that, it was time to think about whether we would put the windows into place first and clad around them, or slot them in after the ply is in place. We decided the first option sounded like the easiest. We placed battens around the frames of all the windows first, so that the plywood can slot in around the frame of the window easily. Then, we realised that we had to put the head flashing on above the window, so ended up removing all the top frame battens. We decided to fit the kitchen window on the West wall first, as this is one of the secondhand ones we purchased which already has a reveal on it, so screwing through and attaching to the frame is straightforward (conceptually at least). We got the window into place, and levelled it out in the frame with some wood splinters, before screwing it into place. Then we put the head flashing into place. To do this, we put a bead of silicone on the underside of the flashing, before placing it on top and the window, and covering the top with a piece of flashing tape, so any water should flow easily onto the flashing. We also put a small bead of silicone on the corners of the flashing, to stop any water from going sideways off it and potentially causing a leak. I then gave the window a bit of a re-spray, which actually turned out to be a bad idea – as it was cold, the paint didn’t sit very well and ran a little. I will probably have to have a re-tidy up of this on a warmer day.

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We next decided to fit one of the new windows in the North Wall. It turned out to be somewhat tricky to get in. The gap that we blocked out a couple of weeks ago turned out to be a little small on the sides, so it was quite hard to get the window jammed in there. When we opened it in its original position, it seemed to go slightly askew in its frame. We eventually figured out how to solve this problem – by raising the window up slightly with a couple of blocks of wood, it seemed to relieve this pressure and the window sat a lot more happily in its frame. In terms of the actual logistics of fitting the windows, I feel we made the right decision in the way we have decided to do things (aka screw straight into the frame and fit a window frame and sill later). It simplifies matters in terms of fitting the windows and ply, and I feel the windows will be a lot more secure this way.

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After this, it was time to start fitting some plywood cladding! We brought over the first sheet, and measured the cuts we would need (starting back on the West Wall with the main kitchen window). Tom then cut these out using the jigsaw, making an impressively straight line cutting freehand. We then lifted the cladding and slotted it into the gap between the window and frame. We had a few problems with this at the start – it turned out that the head flashings are slightly too small , and pull the tops of the windows back in slightly. Nevertheless, with some maneuvaring, we got the sheet perfectly square, and Tom screwed it into place. We managed to get two sheets on the West wall before the light left us for the day.

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The next morning, we continued on with the cladding. We had to put the head flashing above the window first, however, it was so cold that we worried the flashing tape wouldn’t stick properly. I heated it up by the fan heater inside the caravan, before running it out to Tom who fixed it in place. The weather continued to be changeable throughout the day, with the sun breaking through the clouds occasionally. However, for the majority of the day, it was bitterly cold and cloudy, with the occasional shower of rain. This made it impossible to fix the holes in the building paper – we will have to hope for better weather next weekend to achieve this. So, we carried on cladding the intact side of the house instead. We put in two sheets around the kitchen window on the North Wall with not too much hassle. Then, before the next piece, it was time to think about putting in the French doors. This was another aspect which involved a lot of thinking – we had to decide how best to secure them. After hauling them out of the caravan and a bit of deliberation, we decided to screw them in through the sides, and fit them straight to to floor. This meant we would have to take out the bit of the frame which we had cut on an angle and placed back in to create the raised door frame we were originally planning on. This was slightly annoying as we had cut the doorframe on a slight slope to allow water to drain out more easily. However, with this in place, it meant the support bar for the doors would not fit into place properly. We decided that having that in place to take the weight of the doors was more important than a little extra waterproofing – fingers crossed that this turns out to be the case! Taking out the extra block also meant the door flashing had to be re-done. Luckily we got a sunny patch in the middle of the day which made this easier. Once all this was completed, we shimmied the doors into place (no mean feat – they were quite heavy and awkward), and Tom screwed them into place.

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After all that, we prepeared to fix another piece of cladding into place. It was at this point, we realised that we had gone on a slight downward slope during the first two sheets, and would end up having nothing to fix the top of the sheet to if we were to continue – we would go off the line of the battens. Tom made the appropriate adjustments to his cuts, and we moved the next piece up the wall a little. However, I then pointed out that this made the top of the plywood sheets out of line, which might have connotations for how easily we can get the flashing on. We decided, as it was getting late and was still freezing, to finish up and wait and see after getting the flashing how easy it will be to just flash along the wonky join and cover it up completely. This will depend on the size of the flashing – hopefully it will be bigger enough to cover up any discrepancies in the plywood!