[Closed] larch cladding - not exciting content warning

I regularly use Millworks timbers for all larch and cedar cladding, near Cambridge but will deliver all over I think

There have been a number of Grand Designs projects that used larch; one was for a couple with one Japanese, and they used scorched Japanese Larch, which has a high silica content, making it hard to saw and mill, but it’s highly weather resistant. Might be worth doing a search to see where it was sourced - a lot of larch has been felled due to fungal infestation control.

Location? There's a good place in Usk South Wales.

I used Spahaus for my Cedar cladding. they had a number of variations and the guy there was very helpful and patient with me... Not cheap though.

https://www.uk-timber.co.uk/296-siberian-larch

We have this on the back of our house. Fitted horizontally so rain is always pushed away from building. After 6 months starting to grey nicely. Untreated.

https://www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk/

Supplied mine. They’re ace.
I don’t think timber purchasing will ever be a “bitsofwooddirect.co.uk” type of experience. You need to talk to a sawmill about your requirements. They will either wander over to the west dean estate and fell some larch for you, or they usually have a stock of Siberian. Will mill it to whatever profile and dimension you need.

thanks for the input so far. should of mentioned location - high peak area. hadn't thought about going direct to saw mill, good call.

out of the suppliers on line, the guys seem to be coming in cheapest per linear metre

https://www.silvatimber.co.uk/

anyone got any experience of them?

The whole thing with cladding is a bloody minefield and i've no idea why it's so complicated. SO many different products on the market and HUGE variance in cost, to the point where you think theres something funny going on.

Couple that with huge price rises in the timber world in the last 12 months, due to DIY mania, covid and brexit, and all i can say is good luck.

I've just placed another order for cedar for our fencing with https://southgatetimber.co.uk/
After a happy experience last time.

I think I was looking at Silva as well when we did the first batch of fencing, but I have no experience with them. Southgate are local to us, which may be what swung me to them.

Only got my nails from Silva but for that they were fine.

Millworks timber that I posted above are a proper timber mill yard and will also machine up what ever you want

First thing you need to decide is if you want uk grown probably Scottish larch that will be knotty with wide spaced growth rings, or Siberian larch with fewer knots, tighter grain, harder and much more expensive. Timber is also graded in a number of different ways for grain and knots.

Probably worth looking into how sustainable the Siberian larch is, lots of illegal deforestation in Siberia (thanks BBC & Simon Reeve for the psa on that)

I’m in Sheffield and used Sykes Timber for English Sweet Chestnut cladding. It’s similar in appearance to oak but more stable. Supposed to be super-durable too. After 4 years it’s weathering nicely.

Sweet chestnut is a lovely colour, good durable heartwood, the trees tend to remain structurally solid even when dead.

There's a lot of people doing a bit of sawmilling these days, if you can find someone with a bandsaw rather than a Lucas or chainsaw mill, the cut finish is pretty good. Could also consider Western red cedar or Douglas Fir. Douglas tends to be relatively knot free due to the way it sheds branches as it grows.

Softwood prices are strong at the moment, so just because a friend of a friend got a good price 5 years ago, doesn't mean that you will get anywhere near the same deal now, gone up at least £30/ton roadside last 5 years.

I’ve used silva timber a couple of times. The quality of the wood they delivered was pretty variable and I landed up returning some of it for exchange - quite a lot of it was split. They also delivered the wrong ratio of short / long cedar planks.

The guaranteed / treated joists they supplied rotted through with wet rot in the space of 8 years.

I would probably use them again just for cedar as my experience wasn’t too dissimilar to the other specialist timber merchants I’ve also tried.

I got my cedar through local buildbase . (Having had about 5 trucks of materials brought to site from them -it had a hefty reduction from the straight ticket price)

It arrived as expectEd straight no splits knots or holes.

But I did just buy lots of 150mm rough sawn board

Wasn't any more spendy than any of the online wood suppliers. And the local saw mills were astronomical for it.