Categories for James Hardie Cladding
March 10, 2025 3:15 pm
Published by Summit Cladding
Installation Gallery Maintenance free cement cladding One of the great advantages of cement board cladding as a building material is its versatility. It looks just as good and works just as effectively on a new build house as it does on a very old property. Take this 300-year-old former bakery in Hertfordshire as an example. Our client, a London property developer, had owned the building for some years and was gradually restoring it to its former glory. But he had come up against a snag with the external render, which was not only making the house look tired and defective but, more crucially, was letting in the damp. Uneven render causing problems Now as everyone will understand, wet walls in... View Article
February 19, 2025 10:42 am
Published by Summit Cladding
Installation Gallery New cladding installation in Ongar Are you proud of how your house looks from the street, or is it a bit of an eyesore letting down the neighbourhood? Our recent client, who lives in the picture postcard village of Stanford Rivers, near Ongar in Essex, felt that his home fell into that latter category and he needed to do something about it. Many of our prospective clients come to us with a vague idea of how to smarten up their homes but look to our experts for detailed guidance and recommendations – and this was just such a case. Call in the experts The job was certainly urgent, as the gutters were leaking and – worse than that... View Article
December 2, 2024 5:14 pm
Published by Summit Cladding
Installation Gallery The history and problems with hanging-tiles Fitting cladding to exterior house walls has a very long history – over 300 years in fact. But in those far off days the cladding consisted of vertically hung tiles to keep out the weather. Tile hung houses first appeared in the south of England around 1700, a design feature that spread from The Netherlands. At that time many houses had walls made of wattle and daub within a timber frame, not brickwork, so the tiles helped with insulation and weather proofing. Tile hanging was adopted throughout the following centuries in a variety of styles, shapes and colours and it was especially popular during the Arts and Crafts period. In more recent... View Article
September 16, 2024 5:24 pm
Published by Summit Cladding
Why replace worn timber cladding? The pitter-patter of tiny feet in the house is a welcome sound for anyone with young children or animals – but not if the sound is coming from inside the walls! There’s a real risk that birds, mice and even squirrels will get inside timber cladding if it’s not properly maintained. Fortunately, this hadn’t yet happened to our client from Caldecote, near Baldock in Hertfordshire, but it might have done if Summit Cladding hadn’t stepped in. Danger to electrics There’s always a chance of a vermin invasion when timber cladding starts to warp and peel away from the wall, and all timber will do this, given enough time. The biggest risk is to any electrical... View Article
October 12, 2023 8:21 pm
Published by Summit Cladding
Here at Summit Cladding we are always keen to take on a challenge, especially when the property is a bit unconventional. This latest cladding installation job was in Loughton, Essex, and involved what’s known as a BISF house. The letters stand for British Iron and Steel Federation and, as the name suggests, the house has a steel frame, not conventional brickwork. Tens of thousands of BISF houses were built in the 1940s and 50s to cope with the shortage of housing facing returning servicemen and their families who’d been bombed out of their homes during World War 2. A simple and quick solution They were designed to be simple and cheap to build, as a quick solution to an urgent... View Article
July 19, 2023 9:36 am
Published by Summit Cladding
Replacing Hanging Tiles Here at Summit we are proud to continue a fine tradition of cladding people’s homes that began many centuries ago, but the difference is that we are using the most up to date and efficient materials. As the pictures show, this client’s house in Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire used to have a tile-hung upper storey. That is when clay roof tiles are hung on vertical walls as a cladding option. It’s a tradition that began mainly in the south-east corner of England back in the 1600s as a superior form of weatherproofing, when many houses were built of timber, daub and wattle. Nowadays, on modern homes, it’s more of a decorative feature. When it is done properly it... View Article
July 9, 2023 7:33 pm
Published by Summit Cladding
Maintenance-free and Weather-proof It’s important to bear in mind that fitting cladding to the walls of your house is about more than just making it look better. It’s also about protecting those walls and making them weatherproof. Our client, Alice, from Brentwood in Essex, is an interior designer and decorator with an obvious eye for detail. When she moved into her mid-terrace cottage her surveyor highlighted areas that would need attention, including the brickwork. The cement was deteriorating in several places and would need re-pointing, so Alice had a choice: re-point the whole back wall and keep the brick façade or cover it with maintenance-free James Hardie cladding. As with many of our clients, Alice had seen another house nearby... View Article
April 14, 2023 9:01 pm
Published by Summit Cladding
Hardieplank weatherproof cladding If Darwin’s Theory of Evolution applied to the materials used for building cladding there’d be a clear line to follow. First came timber, followed by uPVC, and now we have the fully evolved Hardieplank composite cladding, a real game-changer in the world of construction. Take this cosy home in Chigwell, Essex for example. The owner, Lee, has lived there for 20 years. When he moved in, the house still had its original timber cladding which was showing its age. Timber is lovely and natural, but it doesn’t last indefinitely and needs constant painting or staining to preserve its looks. Evolution in action So, one of Lee’s first projects was to replace the wood cladding with white uPVC,... View Article
March 9, 2023 5:55 pm
Published by Summit Cladding
Summit Cladding ventured out to South Ockendon in Essex for this latest task, where our client, Steve, was looking forward to seeing how we could give his home the makeover it deserved. Steve was one of the many householders who bought their former council homes under the Right to Buy legislation brought in by the government of Margaret Thatcher back in the 1980s. It’s a good, solid semi-detached brick-built house which had pebbledash render around the first floor and boasts a large sunroom extension at the back – although it wasn’t very sunny when we saw the house around Christmas! When Steve and his wife bought their house off the council they knew it would be many years until they... View Article
February 15, 2023 12:42 pm
Published by Summit Cladding
Have you ever had one of those “Eureka” moments when you discover something quite unexpectedly while looking for something else? It’s funny how a solution to a problem can appear when you least expect it. This was what happened for the owners of this charming house, The White Cottage in leafy Harlow, Essex They had gone to the garden centre at Crews Hill in Enfield to buy some plants to brighten their property. But Crews Hill is also the site of Summit Cladding’s showroom, where we display the full range of our products, so you can guess what happened next. The perfect solution As the couple wandered into our showroom, they experienced that lightbulb moment. They realised that James Hardie... View Article
