cladding #7

South elevation (finally) started!

So after a few weeks of battens and insect mesh we started the south elevation cladding last weekend - at last!

Here are some photos of where we got to after a couple of days at it…

Once again we had to start at a particular side (this time the south west corner) in order to be able to cut the compound mitres and the long edges on our saw properly. Martin is getting very adept at upside down cuts!

We started slightly higher than the corner window so that we could transfer a line across the elevation. Now that we have more experience at this we have discovered that the best method is to leave every 5th or 6th board continuous over the windows but to only lightly tack in on. This serves two purposes: firstly, you can remove it easily to trim it to length if it is not fully nailed; secondly it prevents the error we made on the west elevation, where by going up one side of a large opening and then down the other at different times we ended up with boards out of sync due to tiny discrepancies in board width and joint width compounding one another! Even using plastic spacers between the boards it’s amazing how much they swell and contract from day to day, leaving just enough variation in the dimensions to lead to an error over several meters in height.

Some photos of the corner as it progresses…