Newmarket Roofers fits exterior cladding on homes in Ely and this page gives you a clear picture of what the work typically costs, what drives the price up, and where there is genuine room to save.
Exterior cladding in Ely typically costs between £80 and £180 per square metre, supply and installation included. That is a wide range, and understanding what sits at each end of it helps you budget accurately rather than being surprised when quotes come in.
The lower end of the range reflects straightforward single-storey work on a sound wall surface, using fibre cement boards in a standard profile, with good access and no complications at junctions. The upper end reflects multi-storey installations using premium timber or composite, where scaffold costs are higher, the substrate needs attention, and there are complex junctions to detail at windows or a roof line.
Most domestic cladding jobs in and around Ely fall somewhere between £100 and £150 per square metre. If a quote comes in well below £80 per square metre, it is worth asking what it does not include - membrane, battens, trims and stainless fixings can be left out of a headline price and charged separately.
The biggest single variable in a cladding quote is the material. Fibre cement boards are generally the most cost-effective - supply costs for standard profiles typically run from around £20 to £40 per square metre of board. Composite cladding costs more to buy, with supply prices typically between £40 and £80 per square metre depending on profile and brand. Timber varies widely - basic treated softwood is cheap but short-lived on exposed walls, while larch, western red cedar or modified timber products such as Accoya sit in a similar range to composite and often above it.
Factory-painted finishes on fibre cement or composite boards cost more upfront but remove the need for on-site painting, which saves both time and money during installation. Over a fifteen-year period, a factory finish on fibre cement or composite boards will generally cost less in total than a site-painted timber board that requires repainting every three to four years.
Scaffold is one of the most significant cost variables in any cladding job and it is often underestimated when homeowners try to estimate a budget themselves. For a standard two-storey house with work to one elevation, scaffold hire including erection and strike typically adds £600 to £1,500 to the job, depending on the height, the access constraints and how long the scaffold needs to stay up.
If you are having work done to multiple elevations at the same time, it is nearly always more cost-effective to clad all the elevations during a single scaffold hire rather than bringing scaffold back for a second visit later. The scaffold hire is largely a fixed cost per visit rather than per square metre, so spreading it across more work reduces the cost per square metre of the overall job.
Some single-storey jobs can be completed safely from a combination of hop-up platforms and ladders without a full scaffold, which reduces costs noticeably. A contractor should be able to explain the access method they propose and why, and it should be reflected clearly in the quote.
The condition of the wall behind the existing cladding or render has a direct effect on the final cost. A sound, flat masonry wall that needs only a breathable membrane before battening adds nothing to the base cost. A wall with areas of blown render, mortar that has deteriorated, or damp that has worked into the masonry needs remedial work before new cladding goes on, and that work needs to be priced.
On older properties in Ely, it is not unusual for a survey to reveal damp in the wall or damaged pointing that has not been visible from the outside. A contractor who identifies this during the survey and includes provisional costs for remedial work is giving you a more realistic figure than one who ignores it and either cuts corners on site or adds to the price mid-job.
Ask any contractor what happens if the substrate turns out to be worse than expected once the existing cladding is stripped. The answer to that question tells you a lot about how they run a job.
Labour time on a cladding job is not evenly distributed. The large flat areas of a wall are relatively quick to board once the batten system is in place. The time-consuming work is at the junctions - where boards meet window reveals, door openings, corners, soffits and roof lines. Each junction requires a trim or flashing, careful cutting to fit, and correct sealing.
A house with a large number of windows on the cladded elevation, or with projecting bays, dormers, or irregular shapes, will cost more per square metre to clad than a plain, uninterrupted elevation of the same total area. The materials cost is similar but the labour time is significantly higher because almost every board requires cutting and every junction requires detailing.
When comparing quotes, check whether they specify the number of linear metres of trim and the number of window and door junctions included. If one quote appears cheaper, it may be because it assumes fewer metres of trim or less junction detailing - not because the contractor is more efficient.
There are a few areas where a homeowner can reduce cost without compromising quality. Timing the work outside the busiest spring and summer window can make a difference to availability and sometimes to price. Combining cladding work with other exterior maintenance such as soffit replacement or render repairs that share the same scaffold makes the most of the fixed scaffold cost. Choosing a material with a factory finish rather than a site-applied paint coat removes painting time from the labour element and can offset some of the higher material cost.
What does not save money in practice is choosing a cheap material and expecting it to last as long as a better one. Untreated softwood cladding is inexpensive to buy but will require replacement much sooner than larch, fibre cement or composite on an exposed elevation. The total cost over twenty years is almost always higher with the cheap option.
When asking for quotes, make sure each contractor is pricing the same scope. That means the same material and profile, the same area, the same scaffold method, membrane, battens, stainless fixings, and all trims at junctions included. A quote that lists only the cost of boards and labour without specifying the batten system or fixings is not comparable to one that prices the complete installation.
Ask each contractor to break the quote into material costs, scaffold, and labour. This makes it straightforward to see where the differences lie rather than comparing headline figures that may not cover the same work.
We work across Ely and into nearby towns including Newmarket, Cambridge, Soham, Kentford and Bury St Edmunds. If you want a clear, itemised quote for exterior cladding on your property rather than a ballpark figure based on square metres alone, call us to arrange a proper site survey.
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