Western Red Cedar rainscreen cladding
 |
| Master craftsman Steve fixing centre panel with template in place below |
On return from holiday in France the perfectly timed weather was dry and sunny for a whole week, allowing me to strip off the all protective black Tyvek, applied without ventilation top and bottom (and becoming brittle in the sun).
The battens were checked for plumb and flatness and packed up to 18mm using birch plywood continuous packers in 1mm increments. New Tyvek 'Facade' with matt black outer face was stapled into place with double sided tape lap joints and 40mm air gaps for ventilation to the cavity. This membrane is weatherproof but vapour permeable allowing the cavity and wall to breath.
Vertical 15x50mm light gauge galvanised steel angles were screw fixed to the perimeter battens with a Compriband sealing strip between the edge of the Tyvek and brickwork.
Compiband though expensive can be installed in a very precise manner and will slowly expand after installation to form a weather proof seal. The edge of the Tyvek was 'hemmed' using a narrow double sided tape to conceal the white cut edge and give a sharp black line. The exposed face of the galvanised angle and the aluminium input and extract grilles were painted matt black using bitumen emulsion weatherseal.
Fortunately the Lindab downpipe was able to be swung out of the way to allow access for installation and fixing of louvre panels without totally dismantling.
The Youngman Boss scaffolding tower is well designed, easy to erect and dismantle by one person and pretty stable when full height; highly recommended!
The upper 3 sections of cedar cladding were prefabricated in the workshop in accordance with full sized templates all using the same lozenge profile cedar sections. The top and bottom louvres fixed flat onto battens and the middle section edge-on. All louvres generally fixed using concealed decking screw fixed from the rear. The edge-on louvres allow sufficient gaps to allow airflow to and from the ventilation system and also allow a view out of the first floor window and giving visual interest from the street at dusk.The lower section of louvres will now be completed, though not requiring scaffolding they are more fiddly, incorporating door intercom, gas meter box and and internal insulated letter box yet to be detailed!
Kitchen
The kitchen has been complete for some time with shelves and tiling as the final details, (kickspace upstand still outstanding!). The floor tiles worked well as wall tiles though a black grout was used to mimic the gaps between cabinet doors and drawers. Careful and time consuming cutting of tiles was necessary because they are monolithic fired material as opposed to glazed tiles.
