Why choose Hardie Plank?
The first reason is lack of maintenance required. Hardie Plank cladding looks like timber - it has a wood grain effect printed into it. But is in fact a cement fibre board. As such it doesn't require maintenance. Bare cement is not the most attractive finish for a garden room. So these Hardie Plank boards come in a wide variety of factory painted colours. There are a total of 22 colours available, these are the more popular colours -
Hardie Plank walls - the maintenance free option
Most garden rooms and garden buildings use various types and patterns of timber boarding to clad around the outside of these buildings. These require regular ongoing maintenance with preservative, painting or staining (even if they are pressure treated - known as Tanalising). But even with regular painting, the walls will look tired where exposed to the fading effect of the sun. It is not just a faded decorative finish that detracts from a garden office or building. The constant weather exposure through summer and winter will contribute to warping, bowing, expansion and contraction. Hardie Plank is guaranteed for 15 years against any of these common problems with timber cladding.
Building Regulations
There is another reason that timber cladding is not always the ideal solution. UK Building Regulations which states that if the floor area of the building exceeds 15 square metres then it either needs to be at least one metre from any boundary, or it is constructed substantially of non-combustible materials. Given that timber is definitely combustible, this limits the useable area within a garden. It's not always practical or desirable to erect a garden office, log cabin or even a large shed that far away from a boundary. You would lose too much "dead space" behind it.
Practicality
Buildings with timber cladding or solid timber walls (interlocking log cabins) should be built far enough away from a fence, hedge or wall to allow access all around the outside to maintain and paint the walls (usually around 0.5m). Again this wastes valuable space in a garden. No such problem with Hardie Plank clad garden building. No maintenance gap is required because there is no maintenance to undertake!
Alternative cladding option
Alternative composite cladding is also available as a "maintenance free" solution (these are made from a mixture of recycled wood fibers, recycled plastic, and bonding agents). They are also available as self-coloured in various colours and just needs hosing or wiping down every now and then. However, it doesn't resolve the combustibility issue. Composite cladding only achieves Class C or Class D according to the strict rules applied by "EN 13501-1: Fire Classification of Construction Products and Building Elements". Out of the two choices, only Hardie Plank is Class A is defined as being non-combustible. Composite cladding is classified as being combustible to some degree....
Hardie Plank cement fibre cladding
This option resolves both issues, meaning it is "maintenance-free". It is available in 22 colour options and has a guarantee for 15 years). AND it has a fire rating of A2-s1-d0. Which is the highest possible fire rating for a coloured facade/cladding product. This means it's non-combustible AND won't contribute to fire spread.
Here's a more detailed breakdown:
A2: Indicates the reaction to fire and behaviour of the material (as shown above).
s1: Refers to the smoke production.
d0: Classifies the material in relation to flaming droplets/particles.
What does the “S” relate to?
The “S” part of the classification refers to smoke emission (or release) during combustion. S1 is classified as the quantity/speed of emission as being weak. This is the highest classification available.
What does the “d” relate to?
The “D” part of the classification relates to the creation of flaming droplets when exposed to test conditions. Test data reported no flaming droplets within a 600 second test period.
Maintenenance-free garden room composite cladding
Framed and clad buildings
Our range of Easibuild framed garden buildings clad with Hardie Plank cement fibre boards achieve everything you want from a maintenance free garden building. We offer limitless choices of building design - they are all made to order and therefore you can choose the layout, specification and layout that you want. Plus, you can be build it anywhere in your garden (as long as it occupies no more than 50% of your garden). And have peace of mind that it fully complies with the 2 very important regulations that you need to commonly comply with....
No more than 2.5m high (planning permission - http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/outbuildings/miniguide)
If larger than 15sqm (internally) and closer than 1m to a boundary, a garden building needs to be made from substantially non-combustible materials.
Any garden building exceeding 30sqm will need to fully comply with Building Regulations, including the base (building regulations - https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects/43/outbuildings/2)
See how our maintenance-free Hardie Plank walls are constructed for our framed buildings:
Our maintenance-free framed buildings look great using Hardie Plank cladding. The wood grain effect looks like a natural timber board, but crucially without any need for ongoing maintenance AND with the fireproofing built in!
NB - it should also be noted that if your building is larger than 15sqm internally AND closer than 1m to any boundary then the internal skin must also comply. We use Gyproc Firleine plaster board for this reason -
Key fire ratings for Fireline plasterboard
Reaction to Fire: A2-s1, d0
A2: Indicates the material has "limited combustibility".
s1: Refers to a low level of smoke emission.
d0: Indicates a low amount of flaming droplets or particles.
Surface Spread of Flame: Class 1
This means the surface is resistant to the spread of flame.
Prices are shown in each product to upgrade to the Hardie Plank Composite cladding and Fireline plasterboard -
Log Cabins
We have also developed a unique sliding system for our log cabins to be clad with composite as well!
Why sliding? All log cabins rise and fall through the seasons because there is no framework setting them to a fixed height (our FAQ page describes this in detail), therefore it is not possible to "just fix" vertical counter-battens to the log wall (these are required to create a ventilation gap) onto which the Hardie Plank will then fix onto.
Why bother? If your cabin is going to be built closer than 1m to any boundary AND is larger than 15sqm (internally) then it needs to be built of "substantially non-combustible materialls" (as stated above). Our system now means that you can build a cabin as large as 30sqm (internally) right up to a boundary and still comply with Building Regulations. Not forgetting that this composite planking has a 15 year guarantee, so no need to try to get to the cladding in order to paint it on a regular basis!
Does the whole building need to be clad? Not necessarily - your local Building Control officer may state that only the parts of the building within 1m of a boundary need to be protected, so it may only require 1 wall plus 2 x 1m "returns" to be clad. The table below shows indicative prices various lengths of cabin wall that need to be clad with Hardie Plank - these prices are for "blank" walls without any windows or doors (as these take much more labour to install (these prices include inc.VAT) -
| Metre run of blank cabin wall to be clad (no windows / doors) | No insulation | Optional insulation prices (thickness & cost) | Extra cost to install insulation | |||
| Hardie Plank kit | Install cost | 45mm | 70mm | 90mm | ||
| 1m | £301.50 | £400.00 | £33.58 | £52.23 | £67.15 | £25.00 |
| 2m | £465.90 | £400.00 | £67.15 | £104.46 | £134.30 | £50.00 |
| 3m | £730.90 | £420.00 | £100.73 | £156.68 | £201.45 | £75.00 |
| 4m | £1,063.20 | £480.00 | £134.30 | £208.91 | £268.60 | £100.00 |
| 5m | £1,220.10 | £600.00 | £167.88 | £261.14 | £335.75 | £125.00 |
| 6m | £1,324.80 | £640.00 | £201.45 | £313.37 | £402.90 | £150.00 |
| 7m | £1,522.70 | £746.67 | £235.03 | £365.60 | £470.05 | £175.01 |
| 8m | £1,869.90 | £960.00 | £268.60 | £417.82 | £537.20 | £200.00 |
| 9m | £1,918.60 | £1,080.00 | £302.18 | £470.05 | £604.35 | £225.00 |
| 10m | £2,116.60 | £1,200.00 | £335.75 | £522.28 | £671.50 | £250.00 |
| 11m | £2,683.90 | £1,276.00 | £369.33 | £574.51 | £738.65 | £275.00 |
| 12m | £2,512.50 | £1,392.00 | £402.90 | £626.74 | £805.81 | £300.00 |
| 13m | £3,146.90 | £1,473.33 | £436.48 | £678.97 | £872.96 | £325.03 |