Old cladding stripped back to frame, rot patches repaired, modern composite cladding fitted with a proper weather membrane behind it.
The cladding had failed. South-facing wall took the salt spray straight off the water and the existing painted fibro was crazing in three places. Two corners had soft patches under the paint. Brooke wanted the house tightened up properly and a modern look that wasn't going to need painting every five years.
The catch with full re-cladding is you don't know what's behind the old skin until you take it off. We priced the job in two stages. Stage one was the strip and inspection. Stage two locked in once we'd seen the frame.
Composite cladding boards in a charcoal finish — UV stable, doesn't need repainting, won't swell. Pro Clima Solitex Mento breathable wall wrap behind the cavity. Treated pine cavity battens at 600mm centres. Hot-dip galvanised fixings throughout. Powder-coated aluminium flashings around openings, butyl tape sealed at every junction. New stud sections in F5 treated pine matched to the existing frame depth.
Five weeks. Scaffold and strip in week one. Frame inspection mid-week one — found the four bad spots, two of which were behind a window we'd assumed was fine. Repaired and resigned the variation same day. Wall wrap and battens in week two. Cladding install through weeks three and four working from corner to corner. Final week was flashings, gutter reinstatement and snag.
Like-for-like cladding replacement on the same building envelope counted as exempt development. No DA. Coastal salt-zone spec was confirmed against AS 3959 for bushfire and AS/NZS 4284 for weather-tightness. Asbestos clearance certificate filed before any cutting started.
House looks twenty years younger. Charcoal cladding pulls the whole frontage together and stops the eye picking out the patchy old paintwork on the eaves. The wall cavity vents properly now, which is the bit you can't see but matters in coastal Avalon — moisture has somewhere to go.
"Koby & Bill have done a fantastic job of replacing the old cladding with brand new modern cladding on our house."
— Brooke G., Avalon