Newmarket Roofers fits exterior cladding on homes across Cambridge and the surrounding area, protecting walls from rain, frost and wind while giving properties a clean, lasting finish.
Exterior cladding problems rarely announce themselves overnight. Most homeowners in Cambridge notice something small, dismiss it, and come back to a much bigger job twelve months later. Knowing what to look for early is the single most useful thing you can do to keep repair costs reasonable.
The most telling early sign is visible staining on internal walls or ceilings that does not correspond to a roof leak. If the roof is sound but you are still seeing damp patches on upper-floor walls, moisture is likely penetrating behind the cladding or through failed joints. This is especially common where cladding meets window frames or soffits, because those junctions move slightly with temperature changes and the sealant eventually gives out.
Walk around your property after a prolonged period of wet weather and look carefully at each cladding panel or board. Swelling, bowing or cupping in timber cladding tells you the material has been absorbing water it should be shedding. Paint or stain that is peeling in isolated patches is another reliable indicator - it usually means moisture is pushing outward from behind rather than just surface weathering.
On fibre cement cladding, look for hairline cracks at panel edges or around fixings. Fibre cement is far more durable than timber in wet conditions, but it is not immune to cracking if boards have been cut short, installed without adequate movement gaps, or fixed too tightly. Cracked edges allow water to wick into the core of the board, and once that happens the damage is progressive.
Composite cladding holds up well to moisture but it can suffer at the fixing points. Check whether any boards have pulled away from the wall slightly at the top or bottom. A gap even a few millimetres wide is enough for wind-driven rain to get behind the panel and sit against the substrate.
Poor original installation is responsible for a large proportion of cladding failures. The three most common installation faults are: inadequate ventilation behind the boards, fixings that are the wrong type for the material, and insufficient movement gaps between panels and at junctions with other building elements.
Cladding needs a ventilated cavity behind it so that any moisture that does penetrate can escape rather than sitting against the wall. When a batten system has been installed without enough spacing, or when boards have been pushed tight to the substrate, that cavity is effectively closed off. The wall behind can then stay damp for extended periods, leading to timber rot, render breakdown or, in older properties, deterioration of the masonry itself.
Fixings matter too. Stainless steel fixings are standard practice on cladding exposed to rain because mild steel corrodes quickly once moisture gets into the fixing point. Corroded fixings stain the face of boards with rust streaks and eventually lose grip. If you see rust-coloured streaks running down from fixing points, the original installer used the wrong fixings - and those boards will need to come off sooner rather than later.
Movement gaps are necessary because all cladding materials expand and contract as temperature changes. Timber moves more than composite or fibre cement, but all three need allowance at panel ends and butt joints. When boards are fixed without those gaps, they push against each other as they expand, which forces fixings loose, causes boards to warp, and splits the edges of fibre cement panels.
It is easy to focus on the cladding boards themselves and miss the condition of what is behind them. Before any new cladding is fitted, the substrate - whether that is masonry, render, or a timber frame - should be checked for existing damp, rot or structural damage. Fitting new cladding over a compromised substrate only delays the problem and makes the next repair more expensive, because the old cladding and the damaged substrate both need dealing with at that point.
On properties in Cambridge where render has been used as the original finish, it is particularly worth checking whether the render has blown or cracked before cladding is installed over the top. Tapping the render with your knuckle gives a hollow sound where it has separated from the masonry behind. Covering blown render with cladding traps moisture and speeds up the deterioration of both.
A handful of failed boards or a single section with damaged fixings is generally worth repairing if the rest of the installation is sound. The test is whether the underlying batten system is still solid, the cavity behind is ventilated, and the original fixings in the unaffected sections are still gripping properly. If all three are true, a targeted repair is sensible.
If the batten system is rotten, the cavity has been incorrectly detailed throughout, or the fixings are corroding across more than a third of the elevation, a full replacement is usually the more cost-effective decision over a five to ten year horizon. Repeated patch repairs on a fundamentally flawed installation add up quickly and still leave you with the same underlying problem.
Any reputable cladding installation should include:
Ask any contractor to walk you through each of these points before work starts. If they cannot explain the batten system or the cavity detail, that is a warning sign in itself.
We work on properties across Cambridge and into nearby towns including Newmarket, Ely and Bury St Edmunds. Whether you have spotted a problem early or you are dealing with a more advanced failure, call us for a straightforward survey of your cladding and an honest assessment of what the job actually needs.
No obligation · We usually respond within 2 hours
Storm damage, active leak, damaged ridge - we aim to be on-site within 24 hours.
