How Much Does it Cost to Clad a Gable End?

Job Costs

Job	Description	Labour
1	To clad the exposed gable end of a “normal” terraced house with 6” wide, white “shiplap” PVCu, will need scaffolding and take 2 men 3 days.	£850
	Plus materials, scaffolding etc for the above	£1400
2	The same job with new large “Welsh” slates, will take 2 men 5 days	£1375
	Plus materials, scaffolding etc for the above	£1700
3	The same job with plain concrete tiles will take 2 men 7 days.	£1925
	Plus materials, scaffolding etc for the above	£3350
4	To fit insulation as well to any of the above, including the labour add….	£1000

“Labour” at £175 a day (tradesman) £100 (labourer), includes incidental fixings etc. and tipping charges. “Materials” if mentioned, are larger things (a boiler) and stuff only you can choose (tiles etc). Also VAT must be added all round.

Information Sheet on Fitting PVCu Cladding to a Gable End

If you promise you’re not considering stone cladding I’ll let you continue.….wise choice!

I bet there are still people doing it though – I particularly like the mature look when half a dozen of the “stones” have now fallen off and those awful pink ones have faded a bit. It all goes so well with the wheely bins and the old Dormobile on bricks in the garden.

Gable ends often “take more weather” than the front or back of a house. Presumably yours does and that’s why you’re reading this. If your house has no existing cladding anywhere and you’re thinking about it just to spend some money, don’t do it. Potential buyers will ask why and they won’t believe anyone did it just for fun!

If you are adamant, why not fix insulation as well. If the wall is letting water in or it’s freezing cold on the inside, then you probably don’t have a cavity wall. Fix insulation between the wall and the cladding and feel the difference.

The job can only really be fouled up at the edges and around openings. Make sure your builder knows how to finish off at edges and states his method in his quote. Cladding is fixed to battens, so make sure he fixes the battens to the wall correctly. Nailing them on might be ok, it depends on what his nails are biting into. Drilling and fixing with a “hammerfix” type integral plug and screw, may be far better.

PVCu is versatile, with all sorts of profiles to solve edge problems. Slate or tiled cladding edges will have to be carefully considered. Just filling in with mortar will look horrid and it will all be on the path in a year!

If you use slate or tiles, only use new ones, second hand ones are very “patchy” and the job will look awful.